President and Chief Executive of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said the planned Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the Dangote Refinery will launch in September after attracting investor demand approaching $2 billion.
Dangote said this during an interaction with journalists after leading chairman Femi Otedola and top executives of First HoldCo and its subsidiaries on a tour of the refinery complex in Lagos on Wednesday.
“We are trying to make sure that by September, we’ll be out there in the market to sell the IPO,” he said.
Dangote said investors had already indicated strong interest in the offering before its official launch.
“Right now, when we even say we are going to do private placement, already we have people who have actually requested to buy. And we have an amount of almost $2 billion,” he said.
“We are not selling after that, but we’ll see what we can allocate to them. We can see what we can allocate to an IPO.”
He also revealed that the refinery IPO was designed mainly for public participation, with the company targeting wider public ownership.
“Our target really is to get the larger part of the society to buy, yes.”
Dangote added that the refinery’s scale and projected earnings had continued to attract investor attention globally.
He also stated that the company wanted more people to participate in the refinery’s growth and future value.
“What we are trying to do is actually bringing in people when it is at this low level and for them to have an upside,” he said.
“We want it to be like when you buy Amazon or you buy Apple. All those people, everybody has become a millionaire. And that’s what we want to bring into Africa.”
On his part, Otedola disclosed plans to personally invest $100 million in the refinery.
“On a personal note, I’ve appealed to him (Dangote)… I’ve been here with him 25 times, so my compensation is he’s going to allocate to me shares worth $100 million in the private placement,” Otedola said.
“That’s one of the reasons I sold my stake in Geregu, to come and invest my proceeds in the IPO of Dangote Refinery.”
The refinery, located in the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos, currently has a refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, making it Africa’s largest single-train refinery. The facility began large-scale production of diesel, aviation fuel and petrol in 2024 after years of construction and investment estimated at about $20 billion.
The planned IPO is expected to become one of the biggest capital market transactions in African history. Reports indicate the company valued at up to $50 billion and could sell as much as 10% to investors.
Dangote refinery has become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply chain by reducing dependence on imported petroleum products and increasing local refining capacity.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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