Dangote refinery

The Dangote Refinery is an oil refinery owned by Dangote Group that was inaugurated on 22 May 2023^[1] in Lekki, Nigeria. When fully operational, it is expected to have the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it the largest single-train refinery in the world. The investment is over US$19 billion.^[2]

History

Dangote refinery and Free Trade Zone Lekki, east of Lagos

Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote unveiled early plans for the refinery in September 2013, when he announced that he had secured about $3.3 billion in financing for the project.^[3] At the time, the refinery was estimated to cost about $9 billion, of which $3 billion would be invested by the Dangote Group and the remainder via commercial loans, and begin production in 2016.^[3] However, after a change in location to Lekki, construction of the refinery did not begin until 2016 with excavation and infrastructure preparation, and the planned completion was pushed back to late 2018.^[4][5]

The main contractor for the project was China’s state-owned China National Chemical Engineering (CNCEC), which was responsible for large-scale engineering, procurement, and construction works at the site under a US$520 million contract.^[6] Engineers India Limited, a state-owned Indian firm, was appointed in March 2014 under a US$139 million contract for the provision of project management services for the refinery and polypropylene plant.^[7]

About 150,000 tonnes of prefabricated structural steel were supplied from Hangxiao Steel Structure and shipped to Nigeria from China in knocked-down condition for assembly on site. Large equipment, including flue gas steam generators, heat recovery steam generators, boilers, furnaces, and airfin coolers, was modularised in India and transported complete with structures, piping, electrical, and instrumentation for installation using some of the largest capacity cranes in the world.^[8]

In July 2017, major structural construction began.^[5] An associated project at the site of the refinery, a urea fertilizer factory, was scheduled to begin operation in late 2018 and produce about three million tons of urea annually.^[9] In 2018 the project was expected to cost up to $15 billion in total, with $10 billion invested in the refinery, $2.5 billion in the fertilizer factory, and $2.5 billion in pipeline infrastructure.^[9]

In July 2022, Dangote - Nigeria's richest resident - had to borrow 187 billion naira (about 442 million USD) at 12.75% resp. 13.5% p.a. to complete the refinery.^[10] At the same time, all of the four refineries of the state-owned oil company NNPC (in Kaduna, Port Harcourt^[11] and Warri) are idle and expect to process crude oil again in 2023 after "revamping".^[12]

In September 2023, the refinery announced that it will start producing Diesel and kerosene in October 2023 and gasoline one month later.^[13]

In September, it became clear that the refinery would not yet be able to start operations because the supply of crude oil was stalling. This caused considerable public reaction.^[14] On 25 November, the Financial Times gave a new date for the start of operations in December 2023, with the refinery expecting a delivery of 6 million barrels of crude oil in December, after which operations could begin. This would be the first delivery of a total of six.^[15]

On 7 December, the refinery received its first delivery of 1 million barrels of Agbami crude oil. The delivery of the Supersuez tanker OTIS did not take place in the refinery's harbour, but via "Single Point Mooring", a buoy-like floating facility for unloading liquid cargo off the coast.^[16]

The production of diesel fuel and aviation fuel A1 (the most common jet fuel except for the US) started in January 2024.^[2][17]

The Dangote Refinery is capable of supplying 100% of Nigeria's oil needs, and also have surplus of each of these products for export.^[18]

On 26 June 2024, a minor fire occurred in the refinery with video from the scene showing smoke and flame billowing from one corner of the plant. The operator said in a statement that the blaze had no impact.^[19][20]

At the end of May 2024, Aliko Dangote announced that within 2 months the refinery would attain the capacity of 500,000 barrels a day.^[21] The refinery would continue to import oil from the United States, since the domestic oil production can't deliver. "We can't wait" Mr. Dangote said.^[22] At the same time the spokesman of the refinery announced that the Dangote Refinery aims to be listed both at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos.^[23]

In July 2024, Aliko Dangote made an offer to sell the Dangote Refinery to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited after allegations of being a monopolist^[24][25][26]

In October 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) ended its exclusive purchase agreement with Dangote Refinery,^[27] allowing other marketers to buy petrol directly from the refinery. The NNPC had been buying petrol from Dangote Refiner at ₦898.78 per litre and selling to marketers at ₦765.99 per litre, shouldering a subsidy of almost ₦133 per litre. Following the NNPC's withdrawal as the sole off-taker, subsidies ceased to exist in Nigeria as marketers had to buy directly from Dangote and sell at cost price, adding their own differential. This led to a hike in the product's price.^[28]

In November 2024, it was reported that Dangote was in talks with commercial lenders, development banks, oil traders, and other industry participants to secure funds for crude supplies.^[29]

In September 2025, the refinery dismissed 800 employees whom it accused of sabotage. This led to a protest strike by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.^[30]

Facility

The refinery is situated on a 6,180 acres (2,500 hectares) site at the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lekki, Lagos State. It is supplied with crude oil by the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure of the world (1,100 km long). When fully operational it will provide 135,000 permanent jobs in the region.^[31][32]

High complexity

The Dangote Oil Refinery has a Nelson complexity index of 10.5 which means that it will be more complex than most refineries in the United States (average 9.5) or Europe (average 6.5).^[33] (The largest refinery in the world, the Jamnagar Refinery in India, has a complexity of 21.1.) The Nelson complexity index basically increases with the number and capacity of chemical procedures after the distillation, e.g. hydrocracking, NHT, CCR, RFCC, polymerization etc.

In short: Like other refineries, the Dangote refinery separates the molecules of crude oil in the distillation column by their length, breaks the longer molecules into shorter ones ("cracking") and combines short molecules into medium-sized ones ("alkylation"). It improves the knock resistance RON by remodelling initially linear molecules into ring structures ("CCR") or branch structures ("Penex"). It removes harmful sulphur in the Merox system, with the NHT and by SCANfining.

Superlatives

The Dangote refinery is the seventh-largest oil refinery in the world (as of 2025, see here).

In 2019, the world's largest crude distillation column, weighing 2,350 tonnes, was installed in place at the Dangote refinery by a specialist Dutch company.^[34] With a height of 112 metres it is slightly taller than the Saturn V rocket which brought the first man to the moon (110.6m) and 16 metres taller than Big Ben. In the same year, three more records were set when the world's heaviest refinery regenerator was installed^[35][36] - having already been the "heaviest item ever to be transported over a public road in Africa" at a stately 3,000 tonnes and also being "the heaviest single piece of steel structure" of the world.^[37][38]

Marine facilities

The self sufficient marine facility has the ability for freight optimization. To the marine facilities belong:^[39]

• 2 crude SPM (single point mooring, see image below) for unloading ships from Aframax to ULCC (ultra-large crude carrier)
• 3 product SPM for product exports up to Suezmax vessels
• 2 subsea crude pipelines (diameter 48" or 1.22 metres) with interconnection
• 4 subsea pipelines for products and imports (diameter 24" or 0.61 metres)
• ca. 120 km subsea pipeline

Targeted performance

With a single crude oil distillation unit, the refinery will be the largest single-train refinery in the world.^[5]

At full production, the facility will process about 650,000 barrels of crude oil daily, transported via pipelines from oil fields in the Niger Delta, where natural gas will also be sourced to supply the fertilizer factory and be used in electrical generation for the refinery complex.^[40][9] This corresponds with 50,000,000 litres (13,000,000 US gal) of Euro-V quality gasoline and 17,000,000 litres (4,500,000 US gal) of diesel daily, as well as aviation fuel and plastic products.^[9] With a greater capacity than the total output of Nigeria's existing refining infrastructure, the Dangote Refinery will be able to meet the country's entire domestic fuel demand, as well as export refined products.^[40]

Gallery

• 
  Crude oil distillation unit (working principle)
• 
  Simplified production flow chart of the Dangote refinery
• 
  The CDU distilling/distillation column in comparison to the largest Eko Tower and a Saturn V rocket
• 
  Regenerator in comparison with the Cathedral Church of Christ in the center of Lagos, Nigeria
• 
  Sulphuric acid alkylation process (simplified), STRATCO procedure, SAAU; Line width corresponds approximately to the mass flow
• 
  NHT - Naphtha Hydrogen Treatment
• 
  Continuous Catalytic Reforming in the reforming/platforming unit
• 
  UOP Penex unit
• 
  Mass flow of the Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) unit
• 
  RFCC procedure in a refinery using a catalyst; below: how the explosions in Torrance and Superior occurred
• 
  Naphtha Hydrogen Treatment
• 
  Continuous Catalytic Reforming (CCR)
• 
  Alkylation procedure, using sulphuric acid as catalyst
• 
  Penex procedure
• 
  Cracking, Merox, SCANfining, Butamer and Claus process, polymerization
• 
  3000-ton^[41] RFCC-regenerator arrives in Lekki, allegedly the "heaviest item on an African road" in history^[42][43]
• 
  Distillation column at Dangote refinery
• 
  Single point mooring (here: in Kochi, India)