Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited, Bayo Ojulari, has described the Dangote Refinery as a world-class facility equipped with modern technology and capable of making significant impact on Nigeria’s economy and the global energy market.
Ojulari made the remarks while addressing journalists after inspecting several sections of the refinery, including the master control room, during a visit hosted by billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote.
Commending the scale and sophistication of the facility, Ojulari said Nigerians should be proud of the achievement.
“Nigerians, we should be grateful for the leadership and the inspiration of Alhaji Aliko Dangote and the Dangote Group for what my colleague called the audacity to embark on such a huge project,” he said.
According to him, firsthand experience of the plant provides deeper appreciation of its technological advancement and operational readiness.
“There’s nothing like being here physically to actually see things for yourself. What we are seeing here is what I call the frontline of world-class technology,” he stated.
The NNPC boss particularly highlighted the refinery’s design architecture and built-in redundancy, noting that the single-train configuration still delivers exceptionally high operational availability.
“Coming here and seeing the architecture of the plant and the redundancy that has been given… you see that despite being a single train, it has an incredibly high availability,” he said.
Ojulari further disclosed that the facility has been tested to, and even beyond, its installed capacity, adding that the operational parameters observed during the tour were live and impressive.
“This plant has now been tested to its full capacity, above its full capacity… seeing it live, the parameters we are seeing are live parameters,” he noted.
He also revealed that discussions during the visit covered plans to expand the refinery’s capacity. According to him, the proposed expansion will leverage existing common infrastructure, making replication more cost-efficient.
“The expansion of the plant is in hand, which means that we will double the capacity… leveraging all common facilities… which means replication will be coming at a much lower capex,” he said.
