Aliko Dangote plans to launch Nigeria?s first private crude oil refinery by 2019 while almost doubling his cement production on the continent by adding plants in eight countries as he shrugs off a regional economic downturn.
Dangote told Reuters the $12 billion refinery would have a capacity of 650,000 barrels a day, cornering the market in Africa?s most populous country, where fuel shortages are a perennial problem.
A slump in commodity prices has hammered Nigeria?s economy – along with many others on the continent – and raised the cost of borrowing.
"It will be ready in the first quarter of 2019," the billionaire founder of Dangote Cement said of the refinery. "Mechanical completion will be end of 2018 but we will start producing in 2019."