Dangote visited Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Jamnagar plant in India, the world’s largest refining complex, while seeking inspiration for the 650,000-barrel-a-day facility outside Lagos that started production this year, he said in an interview in New York on Monday.
Ambani, Asia’s richest person according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, upended India’s telecom industry with his Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. wireless service, by undercutting rivals and quickly becoming the nation’s biggest carrier.
The Indian tycoon lured investments from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. for his digital venture in the middle of the pandemic. Ambani is now creating India’s biggest non-bank lender.
Sign up for the twice-weekly Next Africa newsletter for the latest business and economic news from the continent.
Dangote, who has himself expanded beyond cement and food, plans to take another page from the play book of Ambani — who ranks over a hundred spots higher as the 12th richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg — while not elaborating on the course he would plot.
While his refinery construction is complete and output is ramping up, Dangote still needs to negotiate a price for the fuel in talks expected to take place over coming days. The plant is likely to operate at full capacity in about four months, said Vartika Shukla, chairperson of Engineers India Ltd., the project manager for the refinery.
Dangote was warned by a high-ranking Saudi minister that the project was too big, but it was too late to turn back, the African tycoon said. Delays that stacked up, ranging from bankrupt suppliers to the global pandemic, dogged the project for years.
“The pressure was coming actually from different directions, the pressure of people confusing us, disturbing us everyday,” he said.
Now that it’s finished, the refinery has the potential to make Nigeria one of the few nations on the continent that isn’t reliant on fuel imports.
South Africa has discussed building new refining capacity for more than a decade, but the project has gained little traction. Ghana announced plans in August for a petroleum complex to include 300,000 barrels-a-day of capacity.
It’s not something Dangote would repeat and he doubts any government or group will be able to usurp his plant that stands as the biggest in Africa.
“Ghana will never ever do it,” he said. “No one else could’ve done this.”
