From Left: Babajide Soyode, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia: Ing. Mansur Ahmed: Boakye Agyarko at Ghipco sponsored by the Dangote Refinery
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and other notable players in Ghana’s petroleum sector and across the continent have welcomed the establishment of the Dangote Refinery which is set to come on-stream by end of 2020.
The news of the largest single stream petroleum refinery in Africa was announced at the just-ended Ghana International Petroleum Conference (Ghipcon 2018) organized at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel.
Participants at the conference from various countries across the globe are eager to know how they could key in for supplies into the 650,000 barrel per day refinery that is preparing to take the continent by storm.
Technical Adviser to the President/CEO Dangote Group on Refinery and Petrochemical matters, and special guest speaker at the event, Babajide Soyode, expressed his delight at the pace of the construction.
He noted that Alhaji Aliko Dangote always did his best in whatever sector of the economy he ventured into.
Mr. Soyode expressed the belief that the support of all Africans to the completion of the project was needed as the benefits were enormous to the entire continent not only by the supply of petroleum products, but creating thousands of jobs.
The special guest of honour at the conference, President Nana Akufo-Addo, who was represented by Vice President Alhaji Mahamud Bawumia, was given a tour of the Dangote Refinery exhibition at Ghipcon where work done was presented to him and the Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko.
The Vice President and other guests were amazed by the sheer size of the project and work done so far.
Vice President Bawumia commended Alhaji Aliko Dangote on the massive project which was 100% privately funded. He expressed the hope that Ghana would stand to benefit from the project.
On his part, Mr Agyarko lauded the efforts of Africa’s richest man in trying to meet the needs of the people.
He noted that Africa needs such projects to develop, adding that Ghana was ready to fully support Aliko to achieve his objectives of building a petrochemical plant to meet the energy needs of Ghana and the rest of Africa.
The completion of the project would culminate in the integration of the downstream industries, lower cost of business and reduce the prices of petroleum products across the sub-region.
Ghana is said to have a favorable petroleum market environment and investments in infrastructure such as oil jetties, pipeline and distribution infrastructure, refineries and gas processing plants, storage and loading gantries are welcome.
In addition to the refinery, the group is also building the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in the world, with a length of 1,100km to handle 3 billion SCF of gas per day.
There is also a plan to construct a 570 MW power plant in this complex.
The gas from the gas pipeline would augment the natural domestic gas supply, and it is estimated that an additional 12,000MW of power generation could be added to the grid with the additional gas from the Dangote system.
Cap: From L-R: Special to Advisor the President/CE Dangote Group, Engr. Babajide Soyode; Vice Present of Ghana, H.E. Alhaji Mahamud Bawumia; Executive Director Stakeholder Management & Government Relations, Ing. Mansur Ahmed; Minister of Energy, Ghana, Hon. Boakye Agyarko at the Ghanaian International Petroleum Conference 2018 (Ghipcon) sponsored by the Dangote Refinery, in Accra, weekend.
By Melvin Tarlue