Businessday: Nigeria’s industrial revolution pinned on oil to gas policy shift

Nigeria is known mainly as an oil producer but shifting the emphasis to natural gas is necessary if the country is ever to realise its ambitions for industrialisation.

The plans by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, to build a 500,000 barrels per day oil refinery, petrochemical plant and fertilizer complex, hinges on one key component ; the availability of cheap natural gas in Nigeria.

Analysts say meeting and boosting the domestic demand for gas will replicate a thousand Dangote’s and set Nigeria on the path to an industrial revolution.

This is because the nation’s abundant and cheap natural gas can power numerous industrial parks, where companies can set up major manufacturing complexes, employing millions of Nigerians.
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