LAGOS — Africa’s wealthiest industrialist and President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has revealed that his conglomerate explicitly rejected recent attempts by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to increase its stake in the $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery
Speaking on Wednesday during an interview with Nicolai Tangen, Chief Executive Officer of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (Norges Bank Investment Management), Dangote disclosed that the rejection was a deliberate move to prevent the concentration of shares in the hands of a single institutional investor. Instead, the company is preparing for a massive public listing on the stock exchange to democratize ownership and allow ordinary Nigerians to buy into the historic project.
“If you look at our refinery, the national oil company already owns 7.25 per cent, and they are trying to buy more. We are the ones that said no; we want to now spread it and have everybody be part of it,” Dangote stated.
The NNPCL currently holds a 7.25 per cent stake in the 650,000-barrel-per-day Lekki-based facility. In 2021, the state-owned oil giant initially agreed to a $2.76 billion arrangement to secure a 20 per cent stake. However, after remitting approximately $1 billion, the NNPCL failed to fulfill the balance of its financial obligations by the extended June 2024 deadline, resulting in its equity being permanently scaled back to 7.25 per cent.
Dividends to be Paid in Dollars
To further sweeten the pot for prospective local and foreign investors ahead of the planned listings across African stock exchanges, Dangote announced a groundbreaking policy: future investors in his business empire will be guaranteed dividend payouts in United States dollars
“What we are announcing is that when you invest in any of our businesses going forward—in cement, the refinery, petrochemicals, or fertiliser—we guarantee to pay you a dividend in dollars because we are very well into exports. Eighty per cent of our revenue will be in dollars,” he assured.
Reshaping the Local Oil Market
The push for a public listing coincides with the refinery’s overwhelming dominance of the domestic energy supply. Fresh market figures show that the Dangote Refinery supplied an unprecedented 3.18 billion litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) to the Nigerian market in the first quarter of 2026.
At an average domestic ex-depot price of about ₦1,000 per litre, the refinery injected over ₦3.2 trillion worth of petrol into the domestic economy between January and March 2026. Consequently, Nigeria’s reliance on foreign fuel imports plummeted sharply to 965.52 million litres, marking a historic reversal of the country’s decades-long dependence on imported petroleum products. Local refineries now cover 76.7 per cent of national demand.
Dangote further disclosed that the refinery recently processed crude at 661,000 barrels per day—surpassing its 650,000 nameplate capacity—with bold expansion plans underway to double refining capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day within the next 30 months.
Policy Inconsistency and Personal Sacrifice
Despite the economic milestones, the billionaire industrialist did not mince words regarding the challenges of doing business in Nigeria. He identified frequent government policy inconsistencies as the single greatest threat to industrial investments, ranking it alongside civil unrest.
However, affirming his total dedication to Nigeria’s industrialization vision for 2030, Dangote opened up about the personal sacrifices he has made, noting that he liquidated his foreign real estate portfolio to avoid divided attention.
“When I decided to go into the industry, you know what I did? I sold all my properties in the US. I had two houses in the US, big mansions, and I had a house in the UK. I wanted to really sit in Nigeria and concentrate,” he shared.
With the NNPCL’s bid effectively blocked, all eyes are now on the capital market as Nigerians eagerly anticipate what is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in the history of the African continent.
