Aliko Dangote is taking his refinery business from Nigeria’s Atlantic coast to Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, with construction beginning on a planned US$15–16 billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Lamu. The facility is expected to process up to 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day when completed around 2030, positioning it as a major new refining project for East Africa and the wider regional fuel market.
The location is central to the project’s strategy. The refinery will be built near Lamu Port along the LAPSSET corridor, giving it access to crude imports, storage, pipelines and regional distribution infrastructure. Dangote has also said the complex will include a 1,000 MW power facility, with about half of its output supplied to Kenya’s grid, linking the project’s economics to both industrial production and the country’s wider electricity system.
Dangote is also looking beyond building and operating the plant himself. He has offered Kenya and two other East African governments a combined 30% stake, with payment terms spread over four years, and has committed to eventually list the refinery on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Engineers India Ltd, which was involved in the Lagos refinery, has received a US$450 million project-management and engineering consultancy contract for the Lamu development.
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The Kenya project comes as Dangote’s Nigerian refinery is seeking US$1.6 billion through an IPO, with the proceeds intended to support an expansion from its current capacity toward 1.4 million barrels per day by 2029. Dangote says investor demand has been enormous, while the IPO values the Lagos refinery at roughly US$47–50 billion. The two projects therefore form part of a broader strategy to expand refining capacity and energy infrastructure across African markets.
Lamu also comes with a different set of challenges from Lagos, including land-rights litigation and the environmental sensitivity of the coastal site. The project therefore has to move through construction, infrastructure development, financing and regulatory processes while demonstrating that a refinery of this scale can integrate with Kenya’s energy system and regional fuel demand. If completed as planned, Dangote would have major refining operations on both the western and eastern sides of the continent.
