Dangote Unveils $16bn Kenya Refinery, Targets 700,000 Barrels Per Day by 2030

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has announced plans for a $16 billion refinery in Kenya with a proposed processing capacity of 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The refinery, planned for Lamu on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, is targeted for completion by 2030 and is expected to process crude from Kenya’s Turkana oilfields as well as supplies from other parts of Africa.

Speaking to reporters in Nairobi, Dangote said the project formed part of a broader push to reduce Africa’s dependence on imported petroleum products and encourage the continent to process more of its raw materials locally.

“By 2030, the majority of African countries will be self-sufficient. It does not matter where it is refined, but it should be in the African continent, on the soil of Africa,” he said.

The project is expected to serve the East African market and reduce the region’s reliance on refined petroleum imports.

Dangote dismissed concerns over the Kenyan project, which already faces a land rights court case and opposition from environmental groups, including Greenpeace.

“There’s actually no problem with these sort of cases,” Dangote said. “There are people who don’t want the development of Africa.”

The refinery is part of a much wider expansion strategy by the Dangote Group across the continent. Dangote said the group had already invested more than $25 billion in existing businesses and planned to invest an additional $50 billion across Africa.

“We want to create and generate wealth for Africans, to make sure that we defend our markets. And the only way to defend the market is not to do baby steps. It’s better we do big scale,” he said.

Kenya’s President William Ruto’s chief economic adviser, David Ndii, said the Lamu refinery emerged from discussions among African policymakers, financiers and business leaders on how to use the continent’s natural resources to drive industrialisation rather than simply export raw materials.

Ndii said those discussions identified petroleum refining as a strategic opportunity for East Africa and led to engagements involving Dangote, Ruto, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and other regional leaders.

He said a closed-door meeting in April assessed the addressable East African market for finished petroleum products at about 20 million metric tonnes annually, with demand potentially rising to 30 million tonnes.

Ndii linked the project to an earlier meeting convened in Nairobi by Ruto and Africa Finance Corporation President and CEO Samaila Zubairu, which examined the difficulty of financing infrastructure designed to process Africa’s resources locally.

He quoted Zubairu as saying: “We export our minerals FOB and import inflation CIF.” Ndii said the Lamu refinery represented an attempt to reverse that pattern.

Dangote also linked the Kenyan project to his plans to broaden African ownership of the group’s businesses through capital markets.

Speaking during a fireside chat with Nairobi Securities Exchange CEO Frank Mwiti, Dangote said the ongoing public offer for Dangote Petroleum Refinery was not primarily about raising funds but about allowing more Africans to participate in the ownership of major businesses.

“It’s not because we need the money. No. It’s because we want to share this prosperity with everybody,” he said.

Dangote said the group would progressively open more of its businesses to public ownership, including its planned shipping business and expanding fertiliser operations.

“Let people own it,” he said.

He added that the group wanted to create millions of African shareholders who could benefit from dividends and potential capital appreciation as the businesses expand.

Dangote also said that if the Lamu refinery eventually becomes publicly listed, he would prefer it to be listed on the Kenyan capital market rather than automatically taking the company to Nigeria.

“If tomorrow we are going to have the refinery here in Lamu to be listed, we don’t have to list it in Nigeria. We shouldn’t list it in Nigeria. We should list it here,” he said.