(Adds ethanol and petrochemical details, story links)
By Libby George
LAGOS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Africa's largest oil refinery will
deliver its fuels to Nigerian consumers via roads and sea ports,
and will effectively replace all of Nigeria's fuel imports once
fully operational, a company executive said on Tuesday.
The 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote oil refinery is under
construction in Lagos, the biggest city in the most
fuel-consuming nation in the region, which absorbed 266,000
barrels of petroleum products per day as of 2015.
Congested ports and dilapidated roads led some to expect
that the company would build a pipeline or other method of
getting its fuel to consumers.
But Dangote Group Executive Director Devakumar Edwin told an
OTL (Oil Trading and Logistics) Expo in Lagos that fuels would
go via "shuttle" boats to Nigerian cities Warri and Calabar, and
that other deliveries would go in trucks.
The company is itself fixing and expanding one of the
current roads to Lekki - an area adjacent to Lagos's financial
and business district - Edwin said, while the Lagos state
government will build another toll road to aid shipments.
"That's going to reduce a lot of congestion," Edwin said of
their plans.
He said the refinery would virtually eliminate fuel imports
from other regions, adding "those who are importing today... can
buy from our refinery".
Dangote had previously told Reuters that the refinery's
mechanical completion was delayed until 2020, though industry
sources told Reuters last year that fuel output was unlikely
before 2022. The refinery is also constructing facilities that will allow
it to export its diesel, gasoline and other fuels to markets
including Europe and Latin America aboard vessels as large as
Suezmax tankers.
It is also designed to be able to produce diesel that meets
European winter standards, and will be high quality enough to go
to any market.
The refinery's startup will be particularly tough on
European refineries, which currently supply a large portion of
gasoline consumed in West Africa, another Dangote executive
speaking at the conference said.
"We can export the product all over the world. So there is
no need for us to (blindly) compete with the local production,"
Edwin said.
The Dangote group is also eyeing ethanol production at its
sugar and molasses plant in Adamawa state, and has facilities at
the refinery to blend ethanol with fuel if needed.
Edwin said they are also already considering expanding
plastics and petrochemical productions at the refinery, which
will make polyethylene and polypropylene when it begins
production.