Nigeria's huge Dangote oil refinery delayed until end of 2020

* Nigerian billionaire's refinery delayed by logistics
* Trading desk in Lagos will have 30 staff
* Tanks, completed this year, could serve as fuel depot
* Fertiliser plant to start this year

By Alexis Akwagyiram
LAGOS, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Africa's largest oil refinery will
not be finished until the end of 2020 due to problems importing
steel and other equipment, executives at Dangote, which is
building the facility in the Nigerian commercial hub of Lagos,
told Reuters.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, imports virtually
all its fuel due to sclerotic and underutilised refineries, and
even the state oil company is looking to the 650,000 barrel per
day (bpd) Dangote refinery to help address this. Price caps force NNPC to import nearly all its gasoline at a
significant cost and periodic fuel shortages are common.
Despite the delays at the congested Apapa and Tin Can Island
ports in Lagos, a Dangote executive said the company could start
using the refinery's tank farms as a depot to warm up
operations.
"We will be able to complete the (refinery) project by the
end of next year - mechanical completion," said Dangote Group
Executive Director Devakumar Edwin, who oversees the project.
The company expects fuel production within two months of
completion of the refinery, which could transform Africa's
biggest crude producer from a fuel importer into a net exporter,
upending global trade patterns.
Billionaire Aliko Dangote, who built his fortune on cement,
first announced a smaller refinery in 2013, to be finished in
2016. Dangote then moved the site to Lekki, in Lagos, upgraded
the size and said production would start in early 2020.
Industry sources told Reuters last year that fuel output was
unlikely before 2022. PLAN
Edwin also said during an interview at his office in Lagos
that Dangote is setting up its own trading desk, with a senior
team of three people and a staff of roughly 30 who will monitor
international commodity prices.
"We are setting up a complete trading desk here with us. In
the next three months the full desk will be set up," he said.
Giuseppe Surace, the refinery's chief operations officer,
said the refinery's tank farms will be finished this year and
could be used as a warm-up for operations.
The tanks will be connected to five "single point mooring
buoys" (SPMs), which will allow the refinery complex to pump
crude straight into tanks from large ships at sea and pump
products back out onto boats of any size.
The SPMs will be the primary method of supplying oil
products from the refinery, Surace said, adding that the team
were considering using the tanks as training or as a depot
before the refinery's production starts.
"We might do that. We will be ready to do that," he said,
though he added that no decision had been taken yet.
The team is in talks with NNPC, two other international oil
companies and two large oil traders, all of whom are interested
in supplying crude and buying products, Edwin said. Edwin said the crude unit for the refinery, which set sail
from China last month, would arrive by the end of October.
The trains at a fertilizer plant on the same site will start
up by the end of this year, the executives said.