PETROLEX PLANS $3.6BN OIL REFINERY INVESTMENT FOR OGUN STATE.

Nigeria is set to get another new oil refinery as a government push to end fuel imports attracts investors to the industry.

Petrolex Oil & Gas Limited plans to build a $3.6bn plant with a capacity of 250,000 barrels a day, its Chief Executive Officer, Segun Adebutu, said in an interview with Bloomberg in Lagos. The closely held company is working on the “front-end engineering design” and will complete construction in 2021, he said.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil-producing nation, doesn’t have adequate refining capacity and imports at least 70 percent of its needs. A government pledge to end such purchases in the next two years by building local capacity has lured investors, including Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, who is constructing a 650,000-barrel-a-day refinery. Meanwhile Saipem SpA and other international companies are in talks to rehabilitate the country’s three existing plants.

Petrolex, whose CEO started an oil and fuel trading business about 12 years ago, has also built a storage tank farm and other mid-stream infrastructure for $330m, Adebutu said.

The inauguration of the tank farm and the start of the refinery construction, both at the same site in Ibefun, Ogun State, is planned for this month.

The tanks are connected to a pipeline at Mosimi, which will transport products around the country, according to the CEO, who sees a big market in Nigeria’s 180 million-strong population. Petrolex will finance the refinery project with loans from local and international lenders, as well as its own revenue, he said.

The company also plans a fertilizer plant and lubricants facility as well as a liquefied petroleum gas plant, Adebutu said.

Petrolex is targeting listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in the next 10 years to ensure the business outlives its owners and can fund future expansion, according to Adebutu.

“By the next five years, we would have achieved a significant amount of our ambition, then begin strategy talks with the stock exchange,” he added.

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11 Beneficial Things You Should Know About Dangote Refinery

Is Dangote the messiah we've been waiting for in Nigeria to end the recurrent fuel crisis?

Will Dangote Refinery increase the GDP of Nigerian economy?

Can Dangote refinery make Lagos State the Dubai of Africa?

What will happen to FG refineries when Dangote finally commences operation in 2019?

With Dangote’s giant stride and unprecedented investment in the local economy, Nigeria will be taken away from the record of countries that import petroleum chemicals and allied products. Besides, Nigeria will be generating and saving an important quantity of forex that will be earned from the export of petroleum and petro-chemical products in a not too distant a future. From my trend analysis, Dangote will edge Mr Bill Gates or whoever is on the top of the ladder on the forbes list in a very short period after the commencement of operation in the refinery. Here are 10 things you should know about the Dangote refinery:

1.     JOB CREATION OPPORTUNITIES: Dangote refinery will create235,000 Jobs when completed. There would even be a whole lot of indirect employment and empowerment in and around Lagos-State, people who are into real estates, food supplies, commodities, dealers of petrochemical products, Government institutions, foreign investors, oil servicing firms, etc.

2.     FOREX EARNING POTENTIALS: Nigeria would save $17.5 billion in forex earnings from the project.

3.     FIRST OF ITS KIND: The refinery with 650,000 barrels of crude oil refining capacity per day is by all standards the largest in the world.

4.     RECORD BREAKING PROJECT: It is the largest single project anywhere in the world – be it fertilizer, gas pipeline, petrochemical or refinery. This is the largest single refinery in the world.

5.     EXPORT OPPORTUNITY IN GAS RESOURCES: The gas project from Dangote Plant would add Over 3 billion cubic feet of gas per day to the Nigerian market, meaning that with the current requirement of about two billion cubic feet of gas per day, Nigeria’s power sector would improve significantly when the project is finally completed.

6.     ATTRACTION OF FOREIGN PARTNERSHIP/ALLIANCES: The United States Trade and Development Agency has signed has a training pact with Dangote Oil Refining Company.

7.     MULTIBILLION DOLAR PROJECT: The Dangote refinery project is worth an estimated $10b usd, more than the nation yearly budget.

8.     24HOURS STEADY POWER SUPPLY: With Dangote refinery coming on board, Lagos State can have 24hrs steady power and electricity supply and this will boost the economic potentials of the state.

9.     POPULATION EXPLOSION: Human Population in Lagos State is bound explode to a

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