African Leaders in Attendance as Dangote Launches $16 Billion Kenya Refinery

• Ruto, Museveni, Abiy, Wadagni, Savi de Tové, Obasanjo witness event  

•Aliko fixes 40 months to complete 700,000 bpd facility  

•Taps Honeywell to take part in building mega-refinery in $300m deal

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja and Peter Uzoho in Lagos

Several African leaders yesterday joined Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, and Kenyan President, William Ruto, to break ground on the $16 billion, 700,000-barrel per day refinery in Lamu County, Kenya, in a major push to deepen the continent’s capacity to process its natural resources and reduce reliance on imported refined petroleum products.

The facility, when completed, will be the largest refinery in East Africa and one of the continent’s biggest industrial projects, with the construction phase expected to create about 60,000 jobs.

The project, being developed by Dangote Group, is also designed as an integrated industrial complex incorporating a 1,000-megawatt power plant, plastics manufacturing, fertiliser and chemical production facilities.

Those who personally attended the event included: Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed; Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni; Togolese President, Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové; Beninese President Romuald Wadagni and former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo.

At the event which was also attended by the Governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, as well as the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, many African leaders, especially from East Africa also sent their representatives.  They included those from Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and Tanzania.

Addressing the ceremony, Dangote said the project represented a new phase in Africa’s industrial development and demonstrated that the continent could increasingly process its own resources and create value locally.

Stressing that the project is scheduled to be completed in the next 40 months, the billionaire businessman said a vessel with about 400 pieces of construction equipment is expected to dock at the Lamu Port in the next 60 days, in addition to 110 pieces of equipment delivered last week.

“This is Africa coming together to build Africa. Today we are not simply breaking ground for a refinery, we’re breaking ground for a new chapter in Africa’s industrial journey to a brighter future. Lekki has proved that it can be done, Lamu must prove that it can be repeated,” Dangote stated.

According to him, the project is part of a wider effort to end Africa’s dependence on exporting raw materials and importing finished products.

“For too long, our continent has actually been rich in resources but poor in value creation and addition. We have exported crude oil and imported refined products. Such practice only leads to us exporting our jobs and opportunities that should remain on the continent and lead us into importing poverty into our nations,” he argued.

To ensure there’s maximum employment of Kenyans during the construction and subsequent oil production, Dangote said his company plans to set up a training school for engineers in Lamu, assuring that every qualified person will be employed in the course of the project.

“We want to make sure that we can get expertise locally without having to employ people from China or India,” he said.

He also recalled the relationship between him and ex-President Obasanjo, describing him as “the father of Africa” and praised him for playing a critical role in ensuring that one of his major investments in Nigeria was completed despite widespread doubts that the project could succeed.

According to him, the former president earned a unique place in the history of his business empire when he believed that local production of cement was achievable despite facing significant scepticism.

“Nobody had ever built that kind of factory in Africa, but Obasanjo made sure that we built it and commissioned it just a few days before he left office,” he said.

Dangote has said the deep-water Lamu port was an important factor in selecting the location, particularly because it can accommodate large vessels transporting crude oil.

The Dangote Group had offered regional governments in East Africa a combined 30 per cent equity stake in the project, in a move aimed at giving participating countries a direct interest in the refinery.

In his remarks, an excited Ruto urged Dangote to ensure the project is completed within the 40-month period he announced, describing the refinery as a landmark investment that would transform Kenya’s energy and industrial landscape and strengthen the country’s economic integration with the region.

Ruto said the project was expected to boost Kenya’s economy by 12 per cent, generate 60,000 direct jobs and attract $4 billion in foreign direct investment annually during its four-year construction phase.

He said the project would also anchor the development of the Lamu Port South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor.

“For too long, Africa has exported raw materials and imported finished products, exporting wealth and jobs. The establishment of this refinery is a turning point, demonstrating our resolve to reimagine Africa’s industrial future, turn our ambitions into action and tap the continent’s massive potential,” he added.

Also speaking, Uganda’s Museveni, said countries in the region consume more petroleum products than the proposed refinery would produce, maintaining that although he was happy to attend the programme, Uganda was keeping its own refining plans alive.

Museveni said Uganda planned to build its own smaller refinery and that the Lamu project would not undermine the country’s plans or its cooperation with Tanzania on the Tanga corridor.

“Uganda’s refinery will be built, and our cooperation with Tanzania on Tanga stands. There is no harm in having more refineries in the region. What Africa needs is value addition, industrialisation and bigger integrated markets,” Museveni said.

Museveni also used the occasion to call for deeper African integration, saying the continent needed to move away from exporting raw materials.

“I am happy to see Africa waking up and moving away from the 70-year betrayal of exporting raw materials. Mr Dangote, who started as an importer and has become a national and continental asset, (and) is a good example of the transformation we need,” he said, adding that “East African political integration must ultimately be treated as a matter of strategic survival.”

For his part, former Nigerian Head of State, Obasanjo, recalled how French company, Lafarge did everything to stop Dangote cement from coming to fruition. Obasanjo said the company’s investment in Africa was not done in good faith.

He said: “The people who really didn’t want Aliko to succeed in the cement business were people called Lafarge, and they put every obstacle in Aliko’s way, just as they are still doing to us today. The experience of Senegal was the one that was traumatic.”

He added: “For two years he could not do anything. Lafarge instigated some locals. They went to court, Aliko won, and Aliko had to pay $12 million to be able to operate his cement factory, two years after it had been completed. Lafarge wanted Aliko not to produce cement in Africa. They wanted to monopolise. Lafarge is now out of Africa.”

Although the refinery was initially proposed for Tanzania’s coastal town of Tanga, it was subsequently moved to Lamu, with Dangote citing the Kenyan site’s deeper waters, stronger ground conditions capable of supporting heavy equipment and deep-sea access.

Meanwhile, Dangote has selected Honeywell Technologies to provide engineering services, licensing and equipment for the planned new 700,000 bpd plant, according to a statement from the company.

“Through our long-standing relationship with Dangote, we have developed proven large-train engineering designs that can be applied to the Kenya refinery to significantly reduce time-to-market,” Honeywell Technologies President, Rajesh Gattupalli, said in the statement.

The company stated that Dangote’s ability to draw upon its established designs will help reduce the development schedule for the new facility by nearly two years, nearly 30 per cent sooner than typical newly constructed facilities.

“The Kenya facility will leverage Honeywell Technologies’ refining and petrochemical processing solutions to produce gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and polypropylene. The refinery will have the flexibility to process a wide variety of crude oils, from light to heavy grades, enabling the use of feedstocks sourced from multiple regions and reducing reliance on any single supply source,” the statement said.

Similar to the refinery in Lekki, Nigeria, it stated that the Honeywell Technologies project scope for the Kenya refinery is expected to be approximately $300 million.