By Abubakar Yunusa
liko Dangote, president of the Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), says the company will soon start exporting coal out of Nigeria.
Speaking during a courtesy call to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) headquarters in Lagos, Dangote said DIL is also targeting a $7 million daily revenue from the sale of fertiliser in the next two years.
The billionaire said the company will soon “massively expand” its export operations.
“For some of you who have been to our Cement factory in Itori, we’re already exporting cement out of Nigeria. We have a whole factory of six million tons for cement export,” he said.
“In the next couple of weeks, we will start exporting coal out of Nigeria. Our fertiliser export will be almost like eight cargoes. The refinery operations will not export less than 25 million tons of various products.
“We will also be exporting about 600,000 to 700,000 metric tons of polypropylene. So when you are talking about export, we are going to be very big.”
Dangote said the DIL plans to export about 16,000 tons of fertiliser within the next two years.
When you talk about 16,000 tons of fertiliser, it’s actually about $6.5 million to $7 million revenue that will be coming into the country on a daily basis,” the philanthropist said.
“With our export programme, our company will be the major supplier of foreign exchange earnings in Nigeria.
“So the operations of Nigerian ports will definitely double in the next one or two years.”
Dangote thanked the NPA for “doing a great job” and said the DIL is the authority’s “biggest or largest customer.”
“I think this kind of interaction between us and them is very important for the growth of the industry. So, we discussed quite a lot of issues,” he said.
“We also discussed issues of how to deepen the Marine and Blue Economy of the nation. And we have agreed to actually work together for the benefit of Nigeria.”
Dangote said the size of his group’s operations in Lekki alone will be “almost 240 ships of crude, with each ship carrying one million crude each”, adding that products “will amount to over 600 ships in a year”.
Dangote said DIL’s fertiliser operations will also involve loading nearly eight ships.
“This is an operation that has never, ever been seen in the country. So, it’s a major challenge. But with the leadership of the NPA, we are very comfortable that they will deliver,” he said.
“Our operations will sink if NPA doesn’t give us the services we will be needing.
“So, the NPA will need a lot of support from the federal government because they won’t be able to do these things with their own physical hands. They need equipment. They need more tug boats.”
“We will also be putting in a few words in necessary quarters to make sure that NPA gets all the necessary assistance from the federal government”.
In his remark, Abubakar Dantsoho, NPA’s managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), said Africa’s richest person visited the authority to show appreciation for the dividends of the naira-for-crude policy.
“He’s here to appreciate that the initiative has contributed immensely to achieving a lot of efficiency in the area of the transactions and operations between Nigerian government agencies,” Dantsoho said.
“This is something that started on the 1st of October last year 2024, and so far, we have treated or operated over 57 vessels every month. The projected volume that Dangote was looking at per annum was 600 vessels.
“If you do 56, 57 vessels into 12 months, you will see that we are already doing bigger than what they projected. We will continue to do our best with support from the government.”
Dantsoho said if all government agencies work collaboratively and align their efforts, efficiencies will be realised in other sectors of the economy.
“We’re happy that the government has approved the national single window. We’re also happy that as of today, we are 95 percent ready for the Port community system,” he added.
On development of new ports, he said capacity improvement or the expansion port capacity can be done “on a brownfield, which is, you renovate or rehabilitate existing ports; or on a greenfield, which is building new ports”.
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