The Build Contract: Honeywell Takes the Lamu Engineering Job

Honeywell Technologies has the process job on Aliko Dangote's planned Lamu refinery.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the US firm will provide engineering services, licensing and equipment for the 700,000-barrel-a-day plant. Dangote and President William Ruto broke ground the same day on a project Dangote has put near $16 billion.

Honeywell already works on upgrades at the Lagos refinery, where capacity is being pushed toward 1.4 million barrels a day. Rajesh Gattupalli, president of Honeywell Technologies, said designs used with Dangote in Nigeria can be applied in Kenya to cut time to market.

What a Kenyan reader should take from that

A licensed process package is how a large still gets built. It is not crude in the tanks and it is not petrol at a Kisumu pump next year. Kenya still cannot feed 700,000 barrels a day from Turkana.

The Malindi Environment and Land Court still has a status-quo order on LR 13061 until 14 October. One hundred and thirty-three Chandavai families remain on the suit. A Honeywell contract does not vacate that order.

The fee is not in the Reuters note. Neither is a start-up date for commercial product. Construction talk remains three to five years.

Why the name matters anyway

Honeywell on the drawing board means the Lamu plant is being copied off a working Lagos train, not sketched from a brochure. That can shorten engineering time. It does not shorten a court diary or invent a crude contract.

For pump prices, today's news is zero. For suppliers who sell steel, valves and camp beds, it is a named buyer. For a saver being asked to buy "Lamu shares", it is still the wrong paper. The live book is Lagos.