Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, disclosed that his company obtained bank loans totaling an impressive $5.5 billion to construct the Dangote refinery.
Dangote revealed this information on Wednesday in The Bahamas at the “AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum.”
The business tycoon claimed that rather than obtaining project funding from foreign lenders, the loan was obtained through domestic banks throughout the continent using the company’s balance sheet.
Dangote clarified that the money had been gradually returned, despite interest accruing due to delays in the refinery’s construction.
“We knew that the foreign banks would have closed the refinery down if we had pursued project financing when we were building it. They may have requested to see my great-grandmother’s birth certificate, which I doubt I will be able to locate otherwise.
“What we did was to borrow the money based on our own balanced sheet. Naira was extremely powerful at that period. We borrowed the money based on our own balanced sheet.
“We took out a $5.5 billion loan. We also had to pay a significant amount of interest because the project took nearly five years to complete. In the end, we began in 2018,” stated Dangote.
Repaid loan of $2.4 billion
Dangote went on to say that roughly $2.4 billion of the loan used to construct the refinery has been paid back.
As a result, he pointed out that the business still owes about $2.7 billion and highlighted their outstanding achievement in light of the project’s size.
“We’ve actually paid back interest and some principal about $2.4 billion. We’ve performed admirably. There is currently only roughly $2.7 billion outstanding. For a project of that size, we’ve performed incredibly well,” Dangote continued.
Things To Note
The largest petroleum refinery in all of Africa and Europe is the Dangote refinery, which is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria.
With a 650,000-barrel refining capacity, the refinery is anticipated to deliver petroleum products to other African nations that rely entirely on Europe for their energy needs, in addition to Nigeria.
The $20 billion refinery has reportedly begun shipping jet fuel to Europe, according to the most recent report.
According to information from S&P Global Commodities at Sea, the first shipment, put onboard the ship “Doric Breeze,” departed the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos on May 27 and was headed for Rotterdam, Netherlands.
As part of the refinery’s tender for 120,000 metric tons, BP was given 45,000 metric tons of jet fuel in the cargo.
Although the refinery has started supplying diesel to the local market, Dangote stated that the supply date has been moved to the middle of the following month due to a minor delay.
“We had a bit of delay, but PMS will start coming out by 10 to 15 of July. But then we want to keep it in the tank to make sure that it settles. So, by the third week of July, we’ll be able to come out to take it into the market,” Dangote concluded.
