Africa’s richest businessman, Aliko Dangote, has selected Kenya’s coastal town of Lamu as the location for a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) oil refinery, ending months of speculation over where the landmark investment would be built.
Edwin Devakumar, Vice President for Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, confirmed on Tuesday that the refinery will be constructed on Lamu Island and is expected to be completed within about 30 months.
The project, which is designed to mirror the scale and impact of the Dangote Refinery in Nigeria, is expected to become the largest refining facility in East Africa once operational.
Tanzania had also been under consideration for the investment. During a visit to the country last month, Dangote met with President Samia Suluhu Hassan and explained the commercial and technical reasons behind the company’s decision to establish the refinery in Kenya. He also invited Tanzania to participate in the Lamu project.
Before settling on Lamu, Dangote had previously indicated that Mombasa was his preferred location for the refinery.
The planned facility builds on the success of Dangote’s 650,000-bpd refinery in Nigeria, which began operations in 2024 and has transformed the country’s downstream petroleum industry. The privately owned refinery has significantly reduced Nigeria’s dependence on imported refined fuels despite the country’s status as one of Africa’s leading crude oil producers.
Dangote Industries also plans to expand the Nigerian refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million bpd by 2028, a move that would make it the world’s largest refinery.
Beyond meeting domestic demand, the Nigerian refinery has become a major exporter of refined petroleum products. It supplies aviation fuel to markets including the United States, Europe and Brazil, while also exporting petrol and other refined products to several African countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana and Togo.
The company has also announced plans to list the Dangote Refinery on the Nigerian Stock Exchange next year as it continues to expand its footprint across the African energy sector.
