Dangote Industries Limited has begun preliminary work on its proposed $17 billion, 700,000-barrel-per-day Kenya refinery, marking a major step toward what could become East Africa’s largest refining project.
The company said the project has moved beyond the planning stage, with a site already selected. It added that soil testing is ongoing, while engineers continue work on the project’s design ahead of construction.
According to Reuters, the refinery will rise on Lamu Island off Kenya’s coast and could take about three years to complete. The facility will supply refined petroleum products to Kenya and neighbouring countries, helping reduce East Africa’s reliance on imported fuel.
According to a Dangote Industries Ltd. spokesperson cited by Bloomberg, the planned refinery will mirror the company’s Lagos facility and process about 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day when completed.
The report read, “A new mega-refinery to be built at the Kenyan coast by Africa’s richest person will cost as much as $17bn, a spokesman for Dangote Industries Ltd. has confirmed.
“Billionaire Aliko Dangote personally pledged to the leaders of Kenya and Uganda that he would set up a replica of his 700,000-barrel-a-day refinery outside Lagos in East Africa. The refinery would take about five years to build.”
The report claims that Dangote personally promised the presidents of Kenya and Uganda that he would build the refinery in East Africa. According to the report, Kenyan President William Ruto said in May that Dangote would begin construction of the refinery this year.
Devakumar Edwin, Vice President for Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries, told Reuters that the project had made significant progress. He said the company had completed soil tests, selected the site and started design and engineering work.
“From the start, Kenya was the option,” Edwin told Reuters.
Plans to increase its combined refining capacity to 2.1 million
As part of its long-term plan to expand across Africa, Dangote Industries Limited has announced plans to raise its combined refining capacity in Nigeria and Kenya to 2.1 million barrels per day.
Devakumar Edwin disclosed this during a recent visit to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos by a delegation from Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo, the national oil company of the Republic of the Congo.
Edwin said the expansion would raise the group’s total refining capacity to 2.1 million barrels per day. The proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Kenya will serve East African markets, while Nigeria will account for 1.4 million barrels per day.
In an effort to accelerate industrialisation across Africa, he also revealed plans to invest an additional $46 billion between 2026 and 2028 in the group’s cement, fertiliser and refining operations.
The proposed refinery in Kenya highlights the growing importance of local refining to Africa’s industrial growth, foreign exchange preservation and energy security.
Backstory…
Recall that Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote had revealed plans to build another 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) Nigerian refinery in East Africa with support from governments in the region.
Dangote revealed this at the April 2026 Africa We Build Summit — an infrastructure financing conference — held in Nairobi.
He said, “I can give commitment to the two presidents that were here, if they support the refinery, we will build the identical one that we have in Nigeria.”
The billionaire emphasised that African nations must “build self-sufficiency.”
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