Dangote Petroleum Refinery has announced plans to expand beyond crude processing into a fully integrated industrial hub, unveiling five major projects that aim to transform Africa’s manufacturing landscape.

The project encompasses the ambitious expansion plan of a 400,000-tonne Linear Alkaline Benzene (LAB) plant to support detergent manufacturing across the continent.

Addressing journalists during a tour of the refinery, Managing Director/Chief Executive, David Bird, said that such dependency is about to change.

Bird pointed out that Africa currently imports 100 percent of its detergent and cleaning agent ingredients.

To address this, he said: “Africa imports 100 percent of its detergent and cleaning agent ingredients, it is called surfactant, that’s what makes the bubbles in detergent, that’s called LAB – linear alkaline benzene.

“And so we will be building a 400,000 tonne LAB plant in order to ensure that Africa and the region no longer have to be dependent on importing all of their cleaning agents.

“Five major projects are already underway, which is a very ambitious growth agenda, and turning this not into just a refinery, but fully world-class industrial refining and trading hub that I think will be transformational for not only the region and the continent but Atlantic hemisphere.”

According to him, the project is expected to drastically reduce import dependence and ensure that Africa and the region can source cleaning agent ingredients locally.

Meanwhile, Bird declared readiness to compete in the West African market on the basis of import parity pricing, while calling for strong regulation to ensure product quality and protect consumers.

He said: “With local refining, we can eliminate that inefficiency by processing crude at our doorstep and delivering products directly to our immediate market. That alone is import parity pricing”.