Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari will officially open the multibillion-dollar Dangote refinery in two weeks, allowing the facility to begin production for the first time since construction began in 2016.
The 650,000 barrels per day refinery being built by billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote’s Dangote Group is seen as a way to replace Nigeria’s dependency on imports for almost all of its refined petroleum products. Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa.
Buhari will inaugurate the refinery, which is close to Lagos, on May 22, a week before he is scheduled to leave office after serving the maximum two terms permitted by the constitution.
A Dangote spokeswoman confirmed the commissioning’s schedule but withheld more information.
After years of delays, the price of the Dangote refinery increased from initial estimates of between $12 billion and $14 billion to $19 billion.