Dangote Pledges 40-Month Completion of $16bn East African Refinery in Kenya

Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group, has pledged to return to Kenya within 40 months to commission the company’s planned $16 billion East African oil refinery.

Dangote committed while officially flagging off the construction of the refinery in Kenya, describing the project as part of efforts to build a wider industrial ecosystem across Africa.

According to him, the East African refinery is designed to process approximately 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day and generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, which he said is twice the current power generation capacity of Lagos.

“We will come back here and commission this refinery in 40 months from today,” Dangote said.

He added that the facility would also produce one million tonnes of polypropylene and base oil, while supplying at least 20 per cent of jet fuel consumed in Europe and the United Kingdom.

Dangote said the refinery’s experience in Nigeria demonstrated the potential of large-scale industrial projects to create businesses and employment opportunities across multiple sectors.

“We are not here merely to build tanks, pipelines, processing units and jets. We are here to help build an industrial ecosystem,” he said.

He listed energy, petrochemicals, logistics, engineering, marine services, manufacturing, skills development, technology and small and medium-sized enterprises among the areas expected to benefit from the project.

The businessman said the development would create thousands of opportunities for people across the value chain and could ultimately give rise to an industrial zone around the refinery.

Also recounting the evolution of Dangote’s business empire, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said cement production played a major role in providing the financial foundation and inspiration for the development of the Dangote refinery in Nigeria.

Obasanjo, who said he visited the Dangote refinery about three months ago, recalled Dangote telling his workers that the success of his cement business helped make the refinery project possible.

According to Obasanjo, Dangote told the workers: “Without this man, I would not have been in cement production, and it’s cement production that provided the encouragement and the inspiration for the refinery.”