Dangote refinery gets $1b grant from US Agency

Nigerian billionaire businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, will soon realise his dream of owning his own refinery as the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), has announced a grant of $997.4 million as training support for the proposed refinery by the Dangote Group.

The grant was announced at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Dangote Group and the USTDA.

Dangote Group had, in May, 2015, declared that the proposed refinery would begin operation in the first quarter of 2018, with an investment of about $9 billion.

USTDA’s Deputy Director, Enoh Ebong, said the agency was pleased to support the Dangote Oil Refining Company’s efforts to increase Nigeria’s oil refining capacity.

She said it was a sign of deepening the United States’ long history of support for vital infrastructure in Nigeria.

“Since 1981, the USTDA has been operating in Nigeria with primary concerns in the area of oil and energy, and we are glad to continue in that line with what we are doing today.”

Dangote, the Chairman, Dangote Group, lauded USTDA for its assistance toward the take-off of the refinery.

He said the aspect of training and capacity development was vital to the success of the project.

“For such a high-tech project investment, getting the right quality of human capital to run the plant is considered to be possibly the most critical success factor.

We are, therefore, most grateful for the generous grant from the USTDA to support the training of some of the operators needed to successfully operate the Greenfield 650,000 bpd capacity refinery.”