Dangote-backed mega refinery sparks east African competition {Business Africa}
📅 May 28, 2026africanews11 MIN4612 VIEWS25 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
Dangote-backed mega refinery sparks east African competition {Business Africa}
From a domestic game-changer to a cross-continental empire, how does one group intend to power the future of Africa? We are here with Aliko Dangote himself.
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What Aliko Dangote said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Aliko Dangote discussed the expansion of his Nigerian refinery and plans for a new East African refinery. He said the Nigerian facility already exceeds domestic consumption and helps other African countries, prompting a large tank farm in Walvis Bay, Namibia, to supply Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the DRC. He expects to start the East African refinery in 2026, with similar capacity to Nigeria but producing base oil from heavier crude, serving Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Rwanda, DRC, and southern Sudan. He stated the East African refinery is more justified and larger in volume than Nigeria's. By 2030, Dangote Group aims to refine 2.1 million barrels daily, making it the second-largest refiner after Saudi Aramco. He highlighted the importance of polypropylene production, noting it enabled cement bagging when Saudi and Iranian supplies were blocked, calling it a game changer.
Key takeaways
Dangote plans to start an East African refinery in 2026, with capacity similar to Nigeria's, producing base oil from heavier crude.
By 2030, Dangote Group aims to refine 2.1 million barrels daily, becoming the second-largest refiner after Saudi Aramco.
Dangote is building a large tank farm in Walvis Bay, Namibia, to supply Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the DRC.
Dangote said the East African refinery is more justified and larger in volume than the Nigerian one.
Dangote credited his polypropylene production with enabling cement bagging when Saudi and Iranian supplies were blocked.
Turkish Airlines presents Business Africa. Welcome to this new edition of Business Africa. I'm your host Afu. The top stories this week: On this episode, we speak to Africa's richest man on how his planned East African mega refinery could accelerate Africa's push to refine its own oil wealth.
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In Rabat, the African Development Bank and OCP Group launched a nearly 1 billion euro grain fertilizer fund to safeguard Africa's food supply.
A proposed mega refinery project backed by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote is stirring regional competition between Kenya and Tanzania, both vying to host the project. The refinery is seen as a potential game changer for a region still heavily dependent on imported fuel despite significant oil reserves.
Africa has historically imported its raw wealth only to buy it back at a premium. The continent sits on nearly 10% of the world's crude oil reserves, yet its citizens routinely queue for hours just to buy a single liter of fuel. The problem: a severe lack of refining capacity. Africa imports over 70% of its refined fuel, draining over $100 billion in foreign reserves every single year.
The continent's richest man, Aliko Dangote, set out to break this cycle by building the world's largest single-train refinery, a $20 billion mega project designed to rewrite continental trade. Today, the facility processes 650,000 barrels a day, flipping Nigeria from a net importer to a fuel exporter. But the vision doesn't stop here. By 2030, the group aims to refine a staggering 2.1 million barrels daily, an output that will be second only to Saudi Aramco.
From a domestic game changer to a cross-continental industrial giant, how does one group intend to power the future of Africa? We're here with Aliko Dangote himself. Welcome to the show. Let's talk about the refinery expansion and why it seemed necessary considering operation started barely two years ago.
The expansion of the refinery is not also just for the Nigerian market, no, because right now we have way above Nigeria's consumption. We're actually helping a lot of African countries out of this crisis. So the expansion, we're looking at how do we actually participate in some of the eastern part of Africa or southern part of Africa, of which from here we'll be able to now address those issues. And that's the main key why we are putting up a large tank farm in Namibia, and then that is in a place called Walvis Bay. From Walvis Bay, we are now pumping it into Botswana, into Pretoria, that's South Africa, and then the other pipeline will go to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, it will go to Zambia. Zambia will go to DRC. So we want to be almost everywhere within the continent.
And you know, it's not only the expansion here, right? As today, hopefully even this year, I think we'll be able—that is 2026—we'll be able to start the one which we call East African refinery. That is not going to be under our name, but we are the promoters. And we are looking at building the same capacity with Nigeria. The only difference is that there we'll do other products like base oil, which we are not doing here, and because it's going to use much heavier crude. So there are a couple of things that we'll do so that the synergy will be there. From East Africa, we'll be able to serve Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique. On the upper one, Ethiopia. You know, this apart from all the other inner countries, you know, like part of Zambia and also part of Rwanda, part of DRC, southern Sudan. The refinery there, actually, I believe it is more justified when you look at when we did the refinery in Nigeria. This one in East Africa has much bigger in terms of volume than the one in Nigeria.
Now, since the commencement of the refinery, how has it changed the macroeconomic landscape in Nigeria? By 2030, the Dangote Group will be refining 2.1 million barrels a day.
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Dangote, A. (2026, May 28). Dangote-backed mega refinery sparks east African competition {Business Africa} [Interview transcript]. africanews. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/945567/
MLA
Aliko Dangote. "Dangote-backed mega refinery sparks east African competition {Business Africa}." africanews, 28 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/945567/.
BibTeX
@misc{dangote2026_945567,
author = {Aliko Dangote},
title = {Dangote-backed mega refinery sparks east African competition Business Africa},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, africanews. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/945567/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
