Yemisi Izuora
Dangote Group has expressed its willingness to offer East African countries a 30 per cent equity stake in its planned Lamu refinery.
The refinery will be located on Lamu Island, off the coast of Kenya.
With financing of the USD 16 billion project taking a structure of 70/30 debt to equity, the stake offered to East African countries would total around USD 1.5 billion according to Bloomberg report.
The report says that Kenya has already expressed interest in investing USD 500 million for a 10% stake of the equity tranche, with Ethiopia and Rwanda expected to take the rest.
The Lamu refinery will have a capacity of up to 700,000 bopd, matching Dangote’s flagship refinery in Nigeria currently the continent’s largest and is expected to receive 600,000 bopd, mainly from South Sudan, as well as from Uganda’s Lake Albert through the EACOP pipeline, and Kenya’s yet-to-be-developed Turkana oil fields.
However the report states that the input plan behind that capacity is currently aspirational.
Uganda’s Lake Albert crude has no direct route to Kenya, as the EACOP pipeline terminates at Tanzania’s Tanga port, so Ugandan barrels would need to be shipped onward by sea rather than piped straight to Lamu. South Sudan’s contribution depends on infrastructure that has yet to be built – reviving the long-dormant South Sudan leg of the Lapsset corridor.
And Kenya’s own Turkana fields, pencilled in for 120,000 bopd, have yet to produce a barrel commercially.
Construction on Lamu is expected to begin in September 2026, lasting up to four years, and injecting over USD 4 billion of investment annually, according to David Ndii, economic advisor to Kenyan president William Ruto.
The deal, still evolving, builds off of Dangote’s recent momentum. In June, Nigeria became the top exporter of jet fuel to Europe, overtaking the US thanks to Dangote’s provision of over 466,000 tonnes.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals, the subsidiary operating the Nigerian refinery, is expected to go public around October 2026, targeting a USD 5 billion IPO. There is already a commitment of over USD 600 million for the refinery’s private placement, and a further USD 400 million to support the IPO