The Dangote Refinery has finally begun operation, the newly commissioned 650,000 barrels per day oil processing facility has been designed to process crude oil grades from the three continents of Africa, Asia, and America. The founder and President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has expressed optimism that his group’s refinery would employ over 100,000 Nigerian youths. He also disclosed that the refinery currently has over 33,000 direct and indirect employees for now as of this month. This is as the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), had projected that Nigeria’s unemployment rate is very likely to hit 37% by the end of 2023.
Over 100,000 new Dangote Refinery jobs
Dangote Petroleum Refinery with a capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day covers an area of approximately 2,635 hectares in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos. In the first instance, this refinery will have an enormous impact on job creation by generating thousands of direct jobs and millions of indirect jobs, with over 100,000 permanent jobs.
Results from the research conducted by HighJobLink Limited on the impacts of the refinery showed that it could support the establishment of about 27,000 fillings stations all across Nigeria and Africa, and as a result, create over 100,000 direct and millions of indirect jobs.
According to Businessday NG, even before the establishment of this refinery, recall that the Dangote Group is the biggest employer of labor in Nigeria outside the government. Now this refinery has created a significant multiplier effect on other sectors of the Nigerian economy by supporting a diverse range of different value chains. On-site, there are always nearly 4,000 Nigerian personnel each day and this excludes employment by the various contractors and sub-contractors at the project site.
Power Generation for businesses
The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, said the Dangote Oil Refinery is expected to generate 12,000 megawatts of electricity. While there have been conflicting takes on the exact amount of jobs that will be created in the refinery, with estimates of 12,000 megawatts of electricity being created this will enable Nigerian small and large businesses to have good access to electric power and therefore able to create over 3,000,000 jobs, there is a consensus that the project could be a game-changer for Nigeria. This was reported by Thecitizen NG.