‘Experienced Indians engineers to man Dangote refinery’
The Dangote Petrochemical and Refinery ‘s 650, 000 barrels per day capacity is to be operated by expatriates from India as 22 graduate trainees returned from Mumbai, India after five months training with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.
At experience sharing interactive session held in Lagos on Monday, Technical Consultant to President and chief executive, Dangote Group, Engineer Babajide Soyode said the company would at the initial stage engage the services of experienced refinery operators from Indian to operate the refinery while a middle class level is attached to them.
According to him, the trainees would still need between 18 to 20 months to be put through Dangote refinery before they can allow to operate it adding that the training has exposed them to nitty-gritty of refinery’s modus oparandi.
“As time goes on, each of the trainees will be made to specialize in their areas but before them, we are going to bring in experienced operators from Indian to operate the refinery, saying that sending young Nigerian graduates to Indian for training is part of smooth transition process of developing the nation’s local content.
Fifty Nigerian graduates were sent by Dangote Refinery to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Mumbai, Indian five months ago to undertake training in refinery operations, maintenance and production, out of which 22 returned to the country last week.
Some of the trainees who spoke with Daily Trust expressed delight at their exposure and promised to put into best practice what they had learnt during their five months exposure at the Mumbai’s 12.5 million tons crude oil capacity refinery.
The company’s Senior General Manager, Umar Hamza said the company had embarked on recruiting exercise as part of deliberate effort to ensure equal participation of Nigerians in the company adding that Dangote Refinery is partnering Nigerian universities in the recruitment process in a bid to get the best among the graduating students.