en.Wedoany.com Reported - Nigeria's Dangote Petroleum Refinery plans to raise approximately $5 billion through an initial public offering, targeting completion by October this year, which could become the largest listing in African financial history. Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the refinery, majority-owned by Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote, has become a major beneficiary due to the Iran war, selling aviation fuel across Africa and Western Europe as global markets face supply shortages.
Dangote is raising funds to expand capacity at the Lagos-based refinery, which processes 650,000 barrels per day, and plans to build a similar facility in Kenya, aiming to reduce Africa's dependence on expensive imported fuel and transform the continent into a petroleum exporter. The proposed IPO's tight timeline has drawn widespread attention across the continent. Stock exchanges in South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, and Rwanda have held a series of meetings with refinery advisors in recent months to participate in the deal. Sources said Kenya's capital market could raise up to $500 million from the total fundraising target, with local investors such as pension funds showing strong interest in the offering.
Another person with direct knowledge of the matter revealed that Dangote Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals Company has filed a listing application with Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission, with approval expected within the coming weeks and a prospectus to be published in September. The first source said the final offering amount will depend on approval from Nigerian regulators, with the primary listing to take place on the Nigerian Exchange, targeting more than 4% of the total market capitalization of all major indices on Nigeria's stock market, which stood at $116 billion on Tuesday.
Compared with other independent refiners, this valuation is quite ambitious. Turkey's Tüpraş, with the same capacity spread across four refineries, has a market value of approximately $12 billion; New York-listed HF Sinclair Corporation, with a market value of $16 billion, operates a capacity of 678,000 barrels per day. The Nigerian Exchange requires a minimum free float of 20%, though exceptions have been made in the past, such as Dangote Cement's free float of 12.7%. Sources noted that regional capital markets hoping to participate in the deal will need to design structured solutions for investors, such as international depositary receipts, to reflect shares listed in Nigeria and secure future dividend rights, with no current plans for dual listings on other markets.
The refinery, built at a cost of approximately $20 billion, began operations in 2024 and reached full capacity earlier this year, with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company holding up to 7% of its shares. Aliko Dangote, 69, announced in April that the refinery is seeking to increase output to 1.4 million barrels per day. The African richest man, whose wealth is estimated between $31 billion and $35 billion, owns a vast industrial and manufacturing complex spanning cement, sugar, salt, and automobile and bus assembly plants, with operations across more than 12 African countries. He hopes to make this listing a collective African project, aligning with his long-standing vision of supporting local solutions to the continent's development challenges. He mentioned plans to work with East African governments to build a refinery on Kenya's coast, with investors given the option to pay in Nigerian naira or US dollars.
