Thank you everyone. Aliko Dangote, so good to speak to you. What a week you've had. So Africa's biggest IPO opened on Monday. Frankly, it's just your biggest, boldest bet yet. 19 billion Nigerian refinery that you've been building for a decade. You're also courting ordinary Africans. You've called the IPO the people's IPO. And you also have a wide ranging platforms including fintechs, mobile phone operators, banks that are being tested because of your listing. So how's your week been?
It's been going very, very well. Really. We launched the IPO on Monday. So immediately after the, I mean, we started, I think the whole systems crash, including the banks, only the stock exchange was actually, you know, running alive, you know, but then we did it again. I think three days later, it crashed again because of the number of traffic going in there to, you know, persevere. But I'm sure right now they have stabilized. So going forward, you have now a lot of other Africans, because we have actually now gotten a way for them to now invest in, you know, from Kenya, from Botswana, from South Africa. In those few banks to see that they can go in there and have, you know, this is because we are looking for 10 million subscribers. I mean, 10 billion is very 10 million, 10 million shareholders. 10 million shareholders.
So what's the take up in so far? Because in your prospectus, you say that actually if it's really oversubscribed, you know you'll issue 30% more. Do you think you'll you'll have to you'll have to issue more if there's an over that one.
We already have green shoe, which is now allowed to sell 30% more than what, you know, we requested for, which was 1.6 billion. But, you know, the IPO that we're doing is actually to bring in democracy into capital markets in Africa is to have Africans to be able to participate in this prosperity. We had a plan as a jewel, you know, to sell $2.5 billion worth of, you know, shares. You know, why not offer for sale Virgin over for subscription. So the money is going into the company for, you know, increasing our capacity, which will end up using partially free cash flow. And our free cash flow is very, very huge. And then we did what you call private placement, which was supposed to be billion. The demand was $3.7 billion, which we were paid in, but we had to fund, instead of refunding them, 2.7. We now took in 2.5 billion, which is the entire amount of money we wanted to raise, both in the private placement and IPO. So after 1.2 billion, we raise 2.5. Now we went back to still try and invite the smaller shareholders, you know, so that they too, they can have sense of belonging in what we are doing. And it's not really the refinery. You know, you have other businesses that are coming into the exchange.
But 10 million actually in shareholders is a massive number. Is there any doubts that your reach that will reach that?
Yes, you can be rest assured. I'm very confident we'll reach that. I mean, today as as we speak, you know, we really look at. Okay, fine, which is the biggest IPO in the world. The biggest thing was Saudi Aramco by just about 5 million subscribers. And what we can find. This is Africa. We want to show that Africa is rising now and that's why we went for 10 million.
So how much? How much of the, you know, refinery's exceptional profit from 2026 was because of what's happening in the Middle East and disruption to supplies? And what does a normalized market look like?
Well, the you see at the moment, our own refinery has actually in terms of health, it has even helped Europe more than Africa. I have, you know, because today we're number one suppliers of jet fuel into Europe. Well, the biggest actually, you know, up to anywhere else. So they have benefited quite a lot. But you know, the plants that we have is actually addressing most of Africa's problems, you know, because in Africa, 54 countries, all the countries are importing petroleum products. And when you look at Africa okay, where are we are going in the next 24 years. In the next 24 years. We are going to be one quarter of the world's population. So we can't really now sit down until we get to that in four years. Then we start looking around, how do you solve our issues? And that's why some of us know what's in there. Hey, guys, let's get out of this mess because we're made so many mistakes in the past. Well, no, we Africans were always calling on Europeans. Americans, all the, you know, foreigners to come and help to develop our continent. So we said, ah, no, that won't happen. Africa is not going to ask for it anymore. We will now go in there and develop our continent. So what do I do right now is trying to convert most of our raw materials that will be shipped in at a very cheap price, which means when you ship raw material, you're actually shipping jobs out because they are not going to create any jobs. Then you import forward into a continent. So have council that now were doing massively. And I'm sure a lot of companies are going to join us. We have 46 to $50 billion, which we are now invested by back into the, you know, into the continent. I mean, talking of don't go to growth. That's what we are investing. Now, I'm sure a lot of people are going to follow suit.
So talk to me about your fertilizer business. Because actually this was really one of the key growth for Dangote Group is the business bringing in more or less of the refinery. And how do you see it's not less even though let me also explain to where we're going in the refinery, what was going on.
The refinery were expanding by first quarter 2029 is actually 2028. And then but let me give ourselves, you know, sometime, you know, just in case. So by 2029, we are going to be at 1.4 million barrels of capacity. Yeah. So when you talk about 1.4 million barrels of capacity, you might not really figure out how big that is. So we will now have 10% of United States total refining capacity. And we are going to have 2.4 million tons of petrochemical, which is polypropylene. We are going to have LNG, which is the raw material for making detergent. And we only have two factories producing that. Libya, I have no doubt about Egypt, 50,000 tons and Algeria, 100,000 tons. And we said, okay, fine. What's the biggest line? The biggest line today is 200,000. But we're building the same thing we did with the refinery. We were now going to build 400,000 metric tons of lab. Because we know in the next few years Africa's population is going to really grow. Is young, vibrant. We have, this is I guess it is ambitious. But you you will hit them. Yeah, we will definitely. We will, you know, get there by one. That's only petroleum products. But when you talk about fertilizer, you remember during the four years ago, during the Ukraine at the beginning of the Ukraine, Russia's crisis, I mean, African Union center, the chairman, president Mike South, will plead that we needed fertilizer, were running out of fertilizer, you know, because they our suppliers and I saw that. So we made announcement. I say in four years, Africa will not go and pick anybody for fertilizer. We are now going from 3 million tons to 12 million tons of urea, were opening of potash mines, were opening up phosphate mines and were also doing 2.2 million tons of DPI. So I think we alone can satisfy at least more than 40% of Africa's demand. And also the fertiliser will be there around there. So it's not that they are going to start having issues where it is season to plant. They don't have fertilizers. Also, Africa's bank have actually given a credit line of $6 billion that they can use either for petroleum products or for fertilizer.
Or are you talking in partnerships with anyone? I know there's, you know, Adnoc maybe someone that.
