Yemisi Izuora
Dangote group is accelerating work in its offshore refinery project in East Africa, following award of a $450 million contract to Engineers India Limited, to handle project management and engineering consultancy for the new refinery planned in Kenya.
Engineers India Limited is reportedly the same Indian firm that worked on Dangote Lagos refinery.
Engineers India, which is majority owned by the Indian government, disclosed the agreement in a filing on the Mumbai Stock Exchange.
The company said it will serve as Project Management Consultant and EPCM Consultant for the greenfield refinery and petrochemical complex, which will be sited in Lamu, a coastal town in Kenya.
The Kenyan facility is designed to process 700,000 barrels of crude per day. Dangote said earlier this month that construction will begin before the end of September and that the full project, covering the refinery and the petrochemical plant, will cost about $16 billion when completed,according to The East African Report.
In its filing, Engineers India said the project will help strengthen fuel production in East Africa and reduce the region’s dependence on imported petroleum products.
“Once completed, this project will be critical in strengthening fuel production within East Africa, reducing reliance on imports, and supporting regional energy security,” the company stated.
This is not the first time Dangote has worked with the Indian firm. Engineers India was involved in building the Dangote Refinery in Lekki, Lagos State, which has a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day and has already been commissioned. That refinery is currently being expanded to reach 1.4 million barrels per day, with the work targeted for completion by 2029.
With the Kenya project now added, Dangote’s refining operations will stretch from Nigeria’s Atlantic coast to Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline, putting the Dangote Group at the centre of refining activity in two major African regions.
Giving update, Aliko Dangote said the Group was extending its industrialisation drive across the continent, with the proposed refinery in Lamu, Kenya, forming a major part of its Vision 2030 strategy. “We’re actually launching that project on the 30th of this month and spending $16 billion on that project and it will be ready within the next three years,” he said.
The Lamu investment represents another major step in the Group’s strategy to develop industrial capacity around African markets, reduce dependence on imported finished products and deploy African capital into businesses capable of serving regional demand.
Dangote said the scale of investment opportunities across Africa remained enormous, with global investors increasingly interested in credible projects capable of delivering transformational impact. “A lot of people want to invest in Africa, but they are looking for scale and also who is doing that investment,” he said.
According to him, the appetite for investment already exists, but investors require credible projects and clearer pathways for deploying capital. “They are ready. People are ready. They are willing. They want to invest money in the continent, but they don’t know how and where,” he stressed.
The Kenya announcement comes as Dangote works to bring in more Nigerian and African investors into the ownership of the Lagos refinery. The company opened its Initial Public Offering on September 14, hoping to raise $1.6 billion through the sale of 4.1 billion ordinary shares. The offer is scheduled to close on October 13, and the shares are expected to start trading on the Nigerian Exchange in November.
Before the IPO, a private placement for the refinery attracted $3.7 billion in demand from investors. Dangote said the company only accepted $2.5 billion of that demand, explaining that the decision was deliberate, as the company wanted to leave room for more African investors to buy into the refinery.
Dangote has also disclosed plans to take his fertiliser business public through an IPO by 2028, which he said would become the largest fertiliser company in the world once listed.
For Engineers India, the Kenya contract adds to an order book valued at roughly $1.6 billion as of June 30, 2026, with about $1.2 billion of that coming from its consultancy division, which earns higher margins than its turnkey engineering work. The company said the deal will help it grow its business outside the Middle East, where activity has slowed in recent times.
The company also recently signed a separate agreement with Hindustan Copper Limited in June 2026 to provide project management and safety consultancy for that company’s mining and smelting operations, though that deal is unconnected to the Dangote project.