Business finance is what makes things happen in the corporate world. For as one American author once noted, “without money, we are dead”. A business will not develop, nor become successfully established, if there are no realistic sources of adequate funding to back it up. This involves raising capital for projects that are supported with adequate and efficient financial planning, making and taking the right investment decisions; and ultimately managing cash-flow effectively to achieve the organisational objectives. In practical terms, there will be no investment if capital (loans and equity) is not secured in the first place; not to mention efficient allocation of the said limited resources, for the daily operations and growth of businesses.
It is on this premise that our own “Africa’s richest man” Aliko Dangote, who is globally acclaimed, unveils bold plans for a 20,000 MW power project in a major push to transform and boost energy supply in the country. Identifying Africa’s most pressing needs as energy, fertilisers, and industrial inputs, he added that his business expansion is being driven by stronger cash flows and increased financial flexibility, by saying that “we are now actually free of assets, and we can actually raise more money. Our cash flow now is very, very strong”.
Dangote’s economic plans and business strategies always erase stagflation (that is, increased inflation, increased unemployment and slowed down economic growth) for the nation’s economy. Take into account the issue of domestic refining of crude by the Dangote refinery in the Lekki industrial corridor, with a nameplate daily capacity of 650,000 barrels of crude. The impact of this investment single handedly and drastically improved the domestic pressure mounted on the nation’s daily consumption of refined hydrocarbon based products (PMS, AGO, DPK, among others; across board). Now that he’s coming on energy supplies for power generation and consumption from another dimension, what else do we have to say to this distinguished and globally renowned investment performer? What it really means is that the nation, which is currently on installed power generation capacity of about 13,000 MW of electricity, shall effectively in the near future, become a handsomely transformed energy economy, with more than 100 percent improvement and increment for energy security and energy sustainability. Aliko Dangote is one internationally acclaimed business guru (tried and tested) that proactively backs up his vision-driven business ideas with action. With this breaking news on energy supply, the economy no doubt, shall soon stop struggling with energy poverty, power failure, incessant blackout and electricity crisis in the energy sector of Nigeria’s economy.
Energy, undoubtedly. is the economic enabler (and the most critical aspect for work being done), that primarily drives industrialisation in any economy. By Dangote’s clear pronouncement that “Today, in about two and a half years, we will be the largest fertiliser company in the world. We are putting up 12 million tons of urea. We are opening up mines of potash and phosphate in Congo and Brazil. We are building the biggest deep-water port with an 18-meter draft. We are doing LNG [Liquefied Natural Gas]”. It means that he has a clear vision on “what” he intends to achieve in the gas sector; and the “how” to go about it on a long term business plan basis.
For the Dangote Group, production and consumption of LNG to generate power has a two way solution which, head or tail, the organisation’s operations shall benefit from its energy supply chain, and shall continue to soar to greater heights and do exploits, economically.
Internal consumption remains an option that would contribute in boosting the organisational economy within the socioeconomic space, than the unnecessary expedition of wealth for the entire economy. Nigeria’s gas sector still remains an aspect of the entire hydrocarbon value chain for cleaner energy exploration, exploitation and expansion through energy transition from fossil sources to renewable. It is yet to be extensively and fully exploited in the interest of the nation’s economic well being. This is part of what Dangote plans to achieve with our LNG resources that are in abundance, and also a source of cleaner energy supply in the energy-mix supply mode. Untapped gas and poor investments in the nation’s LNG infrastructure may spell doom for the economy (if utmost caution is not taken very fast to covet all that may revive the entire economy, before the UN’s timeline to exit fossil fuels completely); pending when tangible and remarkable feat is achieved in the sector, for the general economic interests of everyone that is involved as a stakeholder, operating within the ambits of global best practices that will assure heavy inflows of revenue for the nation, generated through exports of gas, and also to cushion the effect of energy poverty within the system’s daily operations.
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