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AUDACIOUS ENGINEERING GAMBLE
Basically, the atmospheric tower is where preheated crude separates into products (LPG, Gasoline, Naphtha, kerosene, Resids). What makes this refinery audacious is its single-train form factor. Worldwide, refiners are holding their breath for Dangote.
Basically, the atmospheric tower is where preheated crude separates into products (LPG, Gasoline, Naphtha, kerosene, Resids). What makes this refinery audacious is its single-train form factor. Worldwide, refiners are holding their breath for Dangote.
Big refineries, globally, produce from multiple-trains. By implication, when one train is down, others will continue to produce. A single-train is putting all your eggs in one basket; but its also like buying four refining operating capacity and maintenance at the price of one!
Globally, refining is a delicately costly venture, which exploits volume and kobo kobo margins for profitability. A refinery outage time cost refiners hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue from lost production time. Consequently, lost profit opportunity (LPO).
Dangote's global #1 single-train must have been conceived to use aviation's levels of reliability. Meaning, costly equipment redundancy LPO mitigations will be converted to near zero failures, plant availability. Dangote will be world's biggest reliability engineering laboratory.
Dangote Refinery's SOBO (Start of Beneficial Operations) is envisaged for unrealistically 2020; but with benefit of foresight, I can state it for free, its gonna be a very rough road to optimization, debottlenecking & attaining decent 50% production capacity. May Nigeria succeed.
Its marketplace knowledge that process in CPFs (Complex Petrochemical Facilities) dont work as envisaged. Dangote must have been advised to prepare for costly MOCs (Plant Modifications). Countless equipment undersizing, due to miniaturization will be discovered at commissioning.
Its likely Dangote refinery will be due for its first turnaround before all process engineering MOCs & reliability SPOFs (Single Point of Failures) will be completely addressed, to increase availability factor. Whatever the case is, Dangote has become the "daddy" of all refiners!
Signs are omnious Dangote refinery will succeed, as every available engineering ingenuity have been procured, in conceptual design, and contributions from engineering lessons from CPFs across US & Europe. Ironically, Nigerians are jesting about this tsunami in their backyard. 😀
Dangote's isnt a refinery; its a CPF that will scale to more than 300 petrochem & polymeric derivatives. Turnaround Maintenance of this atmospheric tower alone may employ 400 artisans, including scaffolders and fitters. But Nigerians still dont know whats "goinon." Haq! Haq! Haq! 
I envisage real estate & infrastructural chaos within, at least 50Km radius of the Dangote refinery in its first two yrs of SOBO. By now, conception and development of arterial roads & exit ramps should be priority, but we are sleeping on it, until the area becomes another Apapa.
Yearly, Nigeria's oil & gas sector imports roughly $300Million of craftsmen for operations/maintenance, excluding turnaround. We import welders from Philippines. By welders, I don't mean 'Kabiru onirin'. I mean speciality Argon Welders. Mikano is set to hijack this from us. END
