The proposed refinery in Lamu is the company’s first effort to export the industrial model behind its Lagos refinery, potentially providing a blueprint for replicating large-scale African industrial projects across multiple countries. SPECIAL REPORT | BIRD AGENCY | Dangote Industries is attempting to replicate the industrial model behind its Lagos mega-refinery outside Nigeria. According to sector analysts, its proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Kenya would alter East Africa’s fuel economy while testing whether an African industrial platform can be successfully exported and scaled in another regional market.
“It will test whether an African industrial platform developed, financed, and scaled by an African company can be deployed in another regional market to serve multiple countries through a shared production and logistics network,” according to a Nairobi-based economist, Shem Ochieng. For decades, Africa has been exporting crude oil while importing much of the fuel it consumes. A 2022 African Union report shows that African countries refined only about 44% of the petroleum products they consume.
Even more recent data confirms the mismatch. In 2023, the last year with complete data from the International Energy Agency, Africa produced 8% of the world’s crude oil but only 2% of global refined petroleum products. It exported 68% of the crude it produced while importing 61% of the refined petroleum products consumed across the continent.
The contradiction has shaped the continent’s energy economy for decades, leaving many oil-producing countries reliant on overseas refineries for petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel. Dangote Industries believes East Africa can begin reversing that equation, leveraging a blueprint already in place at its flagship Lagos refinery in a second African market. If completed, the estimated Sh2.2 trillion (more than US$17 billion) project would rank among Africa’s largest privately financed industrial investments, serving East and Central Africa while signalling a broader shift towards African-led industrialisation.
The proposed refinery forms part of Dangote Industries’ wider effort to replicate its integrated industrial model across Africa through investments in refining, fertiliser, cement, logistics and related infrastructure. Under its Vision 2030 strategy, the company aims to grow annual revenue to US$100 billion by 2030,…
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