GT, Zenith, First Bank, UBA, others lead Dangote’s $3.3bn refinery loan

Dangote Industries, the umbrella firm of Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote, signed off on a $3.3 billion loan on Wednesday for a 400,000 oil refinery and petrochemical plant, with Standard Chartered and Guaranty Trust Bank leading the deal.
Other banks involved were South Africa’s Standard Bank and FirstRand, Nigerian lenders Access Bank , Zenith Bank, Ecobank Nigeria Limited, Fidelity Bank, First Bank, Diamond Bank, UBA and First City Monument Bank.

Meanwhile, from Africa’s richest man and business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, yesterday came a promise to Nigerians that the country will stop fuel importation by the end of 2016.
To achieve this, the President of Dangote Group has put in place necessary machinery for the construction of a mega project called Dangote Petrochemical.
He said funds have been mobilized by the Dangote Group  to build Africa’s largest refinery, petro-chemicals and fertilizer manufacturing complex in Nigeria. He said a loan of $3.3 billion has been secured from the consortium of banks
The project which will be sited at Olokola in Ondo State is expected to gulp a whopping $9 billion, which represent 20 percent of the nation’s reserve, and will make the country self-reliant in both petrochemical and petroleum products.
Dangote said: "Nigeria is going to be taken out of the list of countries that import petroleum products by 2016. We will produce 20 million metric tons which is currently equivalent to what Nigeria consumes currently.”
He added: “Today, we did the signing ceremony, the Vice President came to witness the signing but we insisted in coming to thank Mr. President so much for his policies. Without good government policies, there is no way the private sector can invest in Nigeria, because we are not Father Christmas at all, the polices have to be right.”
He noted that Nigeria currently spends about $30 billion  annually to import petroleum products. On the coming together of the banks to be part of the financing, he said: “It shows that there’s great confidence in the Nigerian economy and quite a lot of appetite for investment in our country.”
With the signing of the agreement, Dangote disclosed that the project will create jobs for about 85,000 Nigerians at the initial stage and 8,000 engineers. “When you look at what is now happening to Shell Petroleum and others, this policy is better for us,” Dangote said.