Dangote trains young engineers to manage oil refinery

Dangote Oil Refinery is preparing young Nigerian graduates to manage its 650,000 barrels per day single train refinery when it becomes operational in 2022.

Already, the company has trained several Nigerian engineers in some of the world’s biggest refineries in India and other parts of the world to enable them to gain first-hand experience on how to manage such a big refinery.

President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, announced this at the weekend during the tour of Dangote Refinery in Lagos State by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele.

The industrialist affirmed that the country is blessed with great talents that can run the big refinery, if given the necessary encouragement.

According to him, the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, which forced many expatriates out of the construction site, made it possible for the company to identify great talents within Nigeria.

Dangote said, “One thing that gladdens my heart is the abundance of young Nigerians we have trained to take over the operation of the Dangote Refinery. These young Nigerians are the ones that are going to run the refinery when it becomes operational.

“We want a situation whereby the operation of the refinery will be the sole responsibility of Nigerian graduates. We can start the process by bringing in team leaders to keep giving them that training they require to run a world-class refinery.

“However, we will ensure that Nigerian engineers, welders and others are the ones running the refinery. We have created that capacity, human capacity, equipment capacity and every other thing to ensure the successful operation of the refinery by Nigerian engineers.”