Dangote Secures $650 million Afreximbank Loan for Lekki Refinery

Dangote Secures $650 million Afreximbank Loan for Lekki Refinery

Billionaire entrepreneur Aliko Dangote has obtained a $650 million loan facility with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to complete his oil refinery project in Lekki, Nigeria.

According to facility terms read out during the signing, the seven-year term loan would attract a moratorium of five years.

Also, the Cairo-based Africa’s trade bank signed a $750 million facility with Nigeria’s development bank, the Bank of Industry, Vanguard writes.

Dangote Group Executive Director Devakumar Edwin said that the oil refinery would cost around $10 billion and should be completed by December 2019, adding that the company would borrow $3.3 billion for the project, arranged by Standard Chartered Bank with the remainder to be funded by equity through export agencies.

The loans were signed on Saturday in Abuja, where Afreximbank is holding its annual general meeting and 25th anniversary where it to foster intra-African trade through the creation of a payment platform to ease settlement and currency risks.

Africa’s richest man Dangote is building the world’s largest single oil located on 25,000 hectares of swampy land with a jetty to ferry products by sea within Nigeria and abroad including an undersea pipeline to transport gas.

It also intends to process different grades of crude to meet local demand for refined petroleum products and also target export markets abroad.