Dangote Group launches $23B IPO for Africa’s largest refinery

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest person, just fired the starting gun on the continent’s largest IPO ever. Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals FZE began selling 4.1 billion new ordinary shares on September 14, priced at 525 naira (roughly $0.40 each), in a deal that could raise $1.6 billion in gross proceeds and climb to approximately $2.1 billion if a 30% greenshoe option is exercised. The implied post-offer valuation sits somewhere between $47 billion and $50 billion. What the money is for The IPO proceeds are earmarked for a $14.3 billion expansion project designed to double the refinery’s processing capacity from 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2029. The Lekki Free Zone facility outside Lagos already supplies a significant share of Nigeria’s gasoline while exporting jet fuel and other petroleum products across the region. The refinery’s financials give the expansion ambitions some credibility. After posting losses in the prior year, the facility swung to a net profit of $1.82 billion in the first half of 2026, on revenues exceeding $13 billion. That turnaround was partly fueled by supply disruptions tied to conflicts in the Mi...