LAGOS - Two leading Chinese companies on Friday held a groundbreaking ceremony to start the construction of a sub-sea pipeline installation for Dangote Oil Refining Company Limited in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub.

Top officials of the Nigerian Dangote's Group, Xie Xianju, Deputy General Manager of China Harbor Engineering Co (Nigeria) and Zhang Qing, General Manager of China's Offshore Oil Engineering Company (COOEC) attended the ceremony, near the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ).

The pipeline project is part of Dangote's $17 billion gas pipeline, fertilizer, petrochemicals and refinery projects.

The work-scope includes transportation and installation of nine sub-sea pipelines with a total length of 100 kilometers in water depths of up to 40 meters. Of the pipelines, six are 24-inch diameter and three are 48-inch.

The Chinese contractors will also install five single point mooring systems, a catenary anchor leg mooring buoy weighing 240 tons and pipeline end manifold carrying a total weight of 220 tons for a shuttle tanker that imports crude for the refinery.

Xie said the quality of the work to be done at the site would be of the highest international standard, adding that the company's imprimatur of unrivaled excellence would be brought to bear in the project.

Sumil Katawia of the Dangote's Group, said the desire to have the best installations informed the decision to work with a reputable, world class firm like COOEC and China Harbor.

Dangote Refinery currently under construction would save Nigeria 12 billion U.S. dollars annual import substitution, create 4,000 direct jobs and crash prices of petroleum products.

The project would add value to the economy as it would also create 145,000 indirect jobs.

The refinery would lower the prices of petroleum products in Nigeria and save some costs on importation, when completed.

The refinery will have the capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day while the petrochemical plant will produce 780 KTPA Polypropylene, 500 KTPA of Polyethylene while the fertilizer project will produce 3.0 million metric tons per annum of Urea.

The 650,000-barrels-per-day refinery will come on stream by September 2019, according to officials of the company.