Lamu (Kenya) (AFP) – Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote will lay the first stone of his new megarefinery in Africa on Wednesday on the coast of Kenya, with an announced capacity of 700,000 barrels per day, a further step according to him towards the continent's self-sufficiency in its fuel consumption.

Published on: 09/30/2026 - 2:34 p.m.

The Dangote group that he founded has already commissioned in 2024 in Nigeria by far the most productive refinery in Africa, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, which it plans to increase to 1.4 million by 2028, which would make it the largest in the world.

The new Kenyan refinery will be built near the deep-water port of Lamu, inaugurated in 2021, on the coastal part of this Kenyan county located on the northeast coast, bordering the Indian Ocean.

The port of Lamu, where the foundation stone laying ceremony will take place in the presence of Kenyan President William Ruto and several African leaders, is placed under high security on Wednesday, AFP journalists noted.

Lamu County is best known for its archipelago of several small islands. That of Lamu is home to the old town of the same name, built in the 12th century out of coral rock and mangrove wood. It was included by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on its world heritage list because it is “the oldest and best preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa”.

The Kenyan refinery project, with a cost estimated by Aliko Dangote at $16 billion (14.1 billion euros), is being challenged in court by local families who feel they have been dispossessed of their land - a court will deliver its decision on Monday - and criticized by environmental defenders, including Greenpeace who believe that it "threatens a fragile ecosystem".

“There is no problem,” assured Mr. Dangote on Tuesday, blaming “people who do not want the development of Africa”.

According to him, the new refinery will include a power plant with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW), half of the production of which will be injected into the Kenyan grid.

“Are we going to wait?”

Africa produces several million barrels per day, but imports 70% of the fuels consumed on the continent, recalls the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a pan-African financial institution, in an April report, warning that this African dependence on fuel imports would increase.

The AFC estimates that fuel imports from the continent should represent in 2040 approximately three times the capacity of the giant Dangote group refinery in Nigeria.

According to the richest man in Africa, the Kenyan project is therefore a crucial step for the continent to stop depending on imports for its fuel and foreign expertise for its infrastructure.

“By 2030, the majority of African countries will be self-sufficient” in fuels, he said Wednesday in Nairobi. “It doesn’t matter where they are refined, but it should be on African soil.”

If in the future entrepreneurs in Africa take on large projects, it "will no longer be necessary to bring in" Chinese or Indian companies to build them, he stressed.

If Nigeria is one of the main African producers of crude, observers wonder about the origin of the oil which will supply the future Kenyan refinery, the surrounding countries are only just starting to exploit reserves, in a way that is still largely insufficient.

The crude, Mr. Dangote replied, will come from several areas outside Africa and when countries such as Kenya, Tanzania or Mozambique produce in quantity, they will have an operational refinery.

"Are we going to wait" until Africa is home to "a quarter of the world's population before we start to think about what to do? We have to address the problem now," he explained, stressing that the Kenyan refinery would only meet a small part of the demand in Africa if its economy grows.

"When we talk about 700,000 barrels per day, it's actually not much", but "this refinery is not all that we are going to do here, it's just the beginning (...) You will see the number of industries which will come around the refinery", he assured.

© 2026 AFP

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