Dangote Refinery charts industrial future with surfactant plant
Dangote Refinery Announces Major Expansion Plans
By Providence Ayanfeoluwa
LAGOS — Dangote Petroleum Refinery has unveiled plans to evolve its operations beyond crude oil processing into a comprehensive industrial hub, introducing five major projects aimed at transforming manufacturing across Africa.
Central to this initiative is the establishment of a 400,000-ton Linear Alkaline Benzene (LAB) plant, designed to support detergent production on the continent. LAB is a key ingredient in cleaning agents.
During a recent press tour of the facility, David Bird, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Dangote Refinery, highlighted the current reliance on imports. He noted that Africa presently imports all of its detergent and cleaning agent ingredients.
“Africa imports 100 percent of its detergent and cleaning agent ingredients, which are known as surfactants. LAB is what creates the bubbles in detergent,” Bird explained. “We will be building a 400,000-ton LAB plant to ensure that Africa and the region can stop depending on imports for these essential products.”
Bird characterized the expansion as part of a “very ambitious growth agenda,” aimed at transforming the refinery into a world-class industrial refining and trading hub that could serve not only the region but also the broader Atlantic hemisphere.
The refinery’s expansion is expected to significantly reduce the continent’s dependence on imported cleaning agent materials and facilitate local sourcing.
Bird also expressed confidence in the refinery’s ability to compete within the West African market, emphasizing the importance of import parity pricing and calling for robust regulations to maintain product quality and safeguard consumers.
“With local refining, we can eliminate inefficiency by processing crude oil at our doorstep and delivering products directly to our market,” Bird said. “That alone establishes true import parity pricing.”
