A piece of equipment that will process crude oil for Dangote refinery has set sail from China, Sinopec Corporation said on Monday.
The 650,000 barrel-per-day refinery being built in Lagos is set to be Africa’s largest, and could transform the country from an importer of petroleum products to a net exporter.
“On July 29, the world’s largest atmospheric tower built by Sinopec slowly left a wharf in Ningbo. Following the Maritime #SilkRoad, it will travel to #Nigeria and be installed at the world’s biggest single-train facility – Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery,” Sinopec said in a tweet.
For the type of refinery the company is building, the atmospheric tower is the primary unit processing crude oil into fuels, according to a Citac analyst, Jeremy Parker. Reuters reported that it would likely take at least a month to reach Lagos.
The President, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, who built his fortune on cement, said last year that he planned to finish building the $12-$14bn refinery in 2019 and to start production in early 2020.
Source: Punch Newspaper.