By InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Dangote Group, the company owned by Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote, said on Monday it plans to buy phosphate from Morocco and potash from Congo-Brazzaville to feed a planned fertilizer plant, according to a Reuters report.

The report said Dangote made this disclosure in Lagos at a business forum saying his firm was close to signing a deal with a Moroccan firm to supply phosphate, without giving details.

The report quoted the business mogul as saying that his planned oil refinery would have a capacity of 650,000 barrels a day, up from an initial plan of 400,000 bpd.

“We can actually build … 30 percent cheaper than previously,” Dangote said, referring to lower construction cost as a result of cheap global steel prices.

According to the report, the refinery and petrochemical complex will go online around 2018, quoting company officials.

The Africa’s richest man said revealed that the Group was also constructing a gas pipeline beneath the sea to link Nigeria’s oil-producing Delta region to West Africa.

Saying the pipeline will be able to transport 1.5 billion standard cubit feet of gas per day, without giving more details.

The Dangote Group, which is active in cement, oil, food and sugar business, is also expanding into farming.

Dangote said his firm planned to produce one million tonnes of rice within five years. Nigeria so far imports annually 2.8 million tonnes of rice, majority of which is smuggled into the country, he said.

According to him, their projects are mainly import substitution; “We are working to be self-sufficient,” Reuters quoted him as saying.