Aliko Dangote plans New York listing for $49 billion refinery after 2029 expansion

Aliko Dangote plans to take his $49 billion oil refinery to the New York Stock Exchange after completing an expansion that would double its processing capacity, giving investors outside Africa a direct route into one of the continent’s largest industrial assets. The move would follow the refinery’s planned Nigerian listing.

Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE launched an initial public offering (IPO) in Nigeria last week at an implied valuation of $49 billion, seeking to raise as much as $1.6 billion to fund expansion. The offering, described as Africa’s largest IPO, is scheduled to close Oct. 13, according to the company’s plans.

The refinery currently has capacity to process 700,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Dangote said the company intends to complete an expansion to 1.4 million barrels a day by the first quarter of 2029 before pursuing the New York listing, making the expansion a key milestone for the international offering.

New York comes after expansion

“We are doing a primary listing in Nigeria and then we will also hopefully list in New York,” Dangote, the company’s chairman, said at the Qatar Economic Forum, powered by Bloomberg. “But that is after we deliver the expansion” to 1.4 million barrels a day, he said.

The New York listing would broaden the refinery’s investor base beyond Nigeria and other African markets. For now, Dangote said the company is working with banks to create a route for Africans living outside Nigeria to participate in the Nigerian offering, widening access to the group’s flagship industrial asset.

Lagos-based investment banks including United Capital Plc, FSDH Capital and FirstCap are among firms seeking to attract investors and working with regulators and stock exchanges across Africa, Bloomberg previously reported. Their role is expected to help the refinery reach investors beyond its home market as the IPO moves toward its close.

Dangote expands across Africa

Dangote’s listing plans come as the group expands its wider energy infrastructure across Africa. The conglomerate is preparing to break ground on a refinery in Kenya with capacity of 700,000 barrels a day, while also developing pipelines intended to move fuel into landlocked markets across the continent, according to Dangote.

The group plans to begin construction next week on a pipeline from Djibouti to Ethiopia, alongside tank farms, Dangote said. The project follows an announced 2,650-kilometer pipeline linking Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. “By the time we finish, I am sure we’ll end up with almost 4,000 kilometers of pipelines,” he said.

The southern African pipeline alone carries a budget of more than $3.5 billion, underscoring the scale of Dangote’s infrastructure push beyond Nigeria. The strategy places the refinery within a broader network of production, storage and distribution assets designed to serve markets that rely heavily on imported petroleum products.

Fertiliser IPO set for 2028

Dangote is also preparing to take his fertiliser business public in 2028, adding another major industrial asset to Nigeria’s stock market. The group expects annual urea production across Nigeria and Ethiopia to reach about 12 million tonnes by then, up from roughly 3 million tonnes currently, according to Dangote.

The fertiliser business operates a plant in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, with annual urea capacity of about 3 million tonnes. Bloomberg values the plant at $3.02 billion. Dangote’s expansion plan would quadruple production by 2028 through additional Nigerian capacity and a proposed plant in Ethiopia, strengthening the group’s position in African agriculture.

Building an integrated fertiliser business

The expansion is part of Dangote’s effort to build an integrated fertiliser platform serving African markets. The group is developing sources of inputs including potash and phosphate and plans to produce 2.2 million tonnes of diammonium phosphate, Dangote said at the Qatar forum, where he outlined the group’s next phase of expansion.

Dangote said the group has historically built its businesses without partners but now wants to bring more investors into its ownership structure. The refinery IPO is the first major test of that strategy, opening a pathway for retail investors to own stakes in an asset previously controlled privately by the conglomerate.