Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, is targeting a valuation of as much as $50 billion in a planned listing of his refinery business this year, as higher oil prices boost its prospects.
A senior executive at the Dangote Group confirmed that the projected valuation aligns with the company’s current internal expectations but declined to provide additional details on the planned transaction.
Earlier valuations published in late 2025 placed the refinery’s worth at between $20 billion and $25 billion. That figure has since nearly doubled to $40–$50 billion, reflecting stronger than expected operational performance and rising global demand for the refinery’s output.
According to Leadership Newspapers, group revenues across Dangote’s businesses have grown from $3.3 billion to $18 billion over the past five years, while EBITDA rose from $1.8 billion to $2.8 billion during the same period.
By February 2026, the facility had reached its full processing capacity of 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it the world’s largest single-train refinery and Africa’s biggest refining complex.
The refinery currently supplies over 90 percent of Nigeria’s petrol demand and has exported 456,000 tonnes of refined fuel to five African countries. Jet fuel exports alone surged by 770 percent between 2024 and 2026, with Europe receiving roughly 70,000 barrels per day to offset supply disruptions linked to tensions in the Middle East.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the IPO is the proposed dividend arrangement. Investors will purchase shares in naira but receive dividends in US dollars, backed by an estimated $6.4 billion in projected revenue from petrochemical exports, particularly polypropylene and fertiliser, a structure described as unprecedented on the Nigerian Exchange.
The Dangote Group has appointed three investment banks to steer the listing: Stanbic IBTC Capital, Vetiva Capital Management, and First Capital, as leading issuing houses and financial advisers for the offering.
Punch reports that Stanbic IBTC will manage the international book-building process and lead outreach to foreign portfolio investors, Vetiva will handle regulatory experience and retail distribution reach, while First Capital is expected to anchor placements among Nigerian pension funds and institutional managers.
With the prospectus already submitted for regulatory review and a subscription window expected to open by August 2026, the Dangote Refinery IPO is poised to fundamentally alter the scale and ambition of African equity markets.
It will also be the first time that Africa’s most valuable private infrastructure asset will become available for public ownership.
To put the scale of the offering in context, the MTN Nigeria listing in 2019 raised approximately $876 million, which was at the time the largest on the Nigerian Exchange. The Dangote Refinery IPO is targeting up to $5 billion roughly five to six times that size.
At the expected debut valuation range, the listing alone could push the Nigerian Exchange’s total market capitalisation beyond 200 trillion naira, a threshold the exchange has never crossed.
The valuation target comes amid plans to more than double the refinery’s capacity within the next few years and attain a $100 billion valuation for the broader Dangote Group.
