Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Industries Limited, has announced the Dangote refinery IPO will begin within the next 10 to 12 days.
According to Reuters, Dangote made the disclosure on Thursday while speaking to analysts and investors in Botswana.
The $20 billion refinery, Africa’s largest, could raise about $5 billion through the IPO, potentially making it the continent’s biggest public offering.
Dangote said, “So our dream is that we want to make sure we double the capacity of the refinery… which will take us to 1.4 million barrels per day. The IPO will open in the next 10 to 12 days.”
The Lagos-based refinery reached its full 650,000-barrel-per-day capacity in February. It has since increased output to 700,000 barrels per day during testing.
Although refiners worldwide have recently reported higher earnings as clients shifted to alternative fuel sources amid unrest in the Middle East, Dangote did not disclose the plant’s margin data.
Dangote used his trip to Botswana to plan broader moves for his industrial empire beyond the refinery listing. To attract more foreign investors, Dangote Cement plans a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange, likely in October.
He also approved a long-planned expansion outside Nigeria to reduce the region’s reliance on imports and supply refined fuel to Kenya and neighbouring countries. The project involves a new refinery on Kenya’s coast, which Dangote plans to build with East African governments.
With completion anticipated to take up to three years, the facility would mark the group’s largest refining venture outside of Nigeria to date.
Backstory…
The planned Dangote Refinery IPO comes after years of construction, financing and efforts to turn the massive Lekki-based refinery into a major private-sector asset in Nigeria’s oil industry.
If completed as planned, the offering would give ordinary and institutional investors an opportunity to own part of one of Nigeria’s most strategically important industrial projects. It would also represent a significant test for the Nigerian capital market, given the refinery’s scale and its potential valuation.
Read Also: Dangote Refinery Raises $2.5bn, Set for August Public Listing
