00:00Today on Forbes, Africa's richest man doubled his fortune on a massive and risky $23 billion bet.
00:10Aliko Dangote takes a deep breath before reflecting on the odyssey of building Africa's largest oil and gas refinery.
00:18Speaking with Forbes via videoconference from an office space at the refinery, he says, quote,
00:24This is a very, very big relief. It is actually removing something off my chest,
00:28because nobody ever gave us the chance to prove this through.
00:32After 11 years, $23 billion in investment, and innumerable headaches,
00:37the Dangote refinery finally began operating last year.
00:42Located on a sprawling 6,200-acre campus in Nigeria's Leki Free Zone, about an hour outside Lagos,
00:49the refinery processed around 350,000 barrels of crude per day in the second half of 2024.
00:56In January, it processed 500,000 barrels per day.
01:00At full capacity, which is expected next month, a whopping 650,000 barrels per day,
01:06the Dangote refinery will be the seventh-largest refinery in the world by production and the biggest in Africa.
01:14Its adjacent petrochemical complex has an annual production capacity of 3 million metric tons of urea,
01:20making it Africa's largest fertilizer producer.
01:24Dangote's refinery is already impacting global energy markets.
01:28Imports of gasoline into Nigeria are on pace for an eight-year low,
01:32affecting European refiners that traditionally sold to Nigeria,
01:36according to energy intelligence firm Vortexa.
01:39And thanks to the refinery, Nigeria has become a net exporter of jet fuel,
01:44naphtha, which is a solvent used in varnishes, laundry soaps and cleaning fluids,
01:49and fuel oil, this according to S&P Global.
01:53With his project coming to fruition, Dangote is now worth an estimated $23.8 billion,
02:00almost double what he was worth last year.
02:03He insists he's even richer.
02:05Already Africa's wealthiest person, the 67-year-old Nigerian,
02:09moves back into the ranks of the top 100 richest since 2018,
02:13according to Forbes' real-time billionaires list.
02:16It seemed not long ago that Dangote's refinery might never come online.
02:21In late 2023, some observers expressed doubt the plant would even work.
02:26Even once operations began early last year,
02:29Dangote struggled to source crude oil from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,
02:34Nigeria's all-important state-owned oil company,
02:37threatening the project's financial viability.
02:40Dangote says the refinery is part of a larger mission.
02:44He wants to make Nigeria, one of the world's largest producers of crude,
02:48into a producer of refined petroleum products
02:51to allow it to compete with European refineries and supply gasoline to Nigerians.
02:56Prior attempts by the Nigerian government to build and operate large-scale refineries
03:01ended in failure, leaving Nigerian consumers and businesses
03:05reliant on petrol imports, mostly from Europe.
03:08Until recently, a fuel subsidy kept gasoline affordable for consumers,
03:13but the program has strained Nigeria's finances
03:15and been mired in corruption allegations.
03:18Billions of dollars were siphoned off by regulators and middlemen
03:22over a period of decades in a scheme that disincentivized
03:25maintenance of state-owned refineries,
03:27many of which sit idle or in a state of disrepair.
03:31Clementine Wallop, an Africa analyst at Horizon Engage,
03:35a geopolitical consulting firm, says,
03:45Dangote wants to provide a blueprint for industrialization across Africa.
03:49He says,
03:58He says that his refinery represents,
04:11Dangote is determined to make the refinery a success.
04:14The billionaire says that he still spends a lot of his time at the refinery,
04:18meeting with engineers and managers.
04:20There are more challenges ahead, including building a subsea pipeline
04:25to transport natural gas from the Niger Delta to Lagos,
04:28and doubling output at the refinery's fertilizer plant.
04:32He also says he wants to take the refinery public in the next year or two.
04:37Dangote says,
04:44For full coverage, check out John Hyatt's piece on Forbes.com.
04:54For more stories, visit nyseagrant.org
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