Dangote Industries Limited has acquired an additional 4,000 pieces of construction equipment for the expansion of its Lekki refinery to 1.4 million barrels per day, bringing its fleet to 6,500 machines.
The Group Vice President, Oil and Gas and Fertiliser, Devakumar Edwin, disclosed this Friday while briefing editors during a tour of the refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
Edwin said the company initially acquired 2,563 pieces of equipment after Julius Berger and other contractors indicated that they lacked the capacity to construct the main factory buildings of the refinery.
“We ended up buying 2,563 pieces of equipment. We became the second largest company in the world in terms of construction equipment. Today, we are the largest because of the expansion. We have bought 4,000 more pieces of equipment; we have 6,500 pieces of construction equipment. We bought 330 cranes,” he said.
He explained that the decision to acquire the equipment rather than engage foreign engineering, procurement and construction contractors was taken by the President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, after the company found that hiring overseas contractors would significantly increase the project cost.
“If I bring in a foreign contractor, I’ll have to ship in all his equipment, and I’ll have to ship back all his equipment, and those guys will also try to depreciate their equipment by adding it to our cost. By the end of the day, we end up paying a lot of money. So my president said, very well, let’s go and buy all the construction equipment,” he said.
Edwin recalled that Julius Berger, after reviewing the refinery’s drawings, declined to undertake the construction of the main process buildings. “They said, sorry, we cannot do any of your factory buildings. We don’t have the capacity,” he said.
