Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has revealed that Kenya is emerging as his preferred location for a proposed 650,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery in East Africa, with the final decision expected to depend largely on the support of Kenyan President William Ruto.
According to a report published by the Financial Times on Sunday, Dangote said he was favouring the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa over Tanzania’s Tanga Port due to its stronger economic and logistical advantages.
“I’m leaning more towards Mombasa because Mombasa has a much larger, deeper port,” Dangote said in the interview.
The remarks come weeks after President Ruto disclosed that East African nations were discussing plans for a joint regional refinery project at Tanga port in Tanzania, modelled after the Dangote Refinery in Nigeria.
Dangote, however, suggested Kenya held a stronger advantage, pointing to the country’s economic size and higher fuel consumption.
“Kenyans consume more. It’s a bigger economy,” he said.
The billionaire industrialist also indicated that the future of the proposed refinery project would ultimately depend on the Kenyan government’s position.
“The ball is in the hands of President Ruto,” he said. “Whatever President Ruto says is what I’ll do.”
The Financial Times reported that Dangote estimated the refinery would require between $15 billion and $17 billion in investment.
If realised, the project could transform East Africa’s energy sector, where countries currently rely heavily on imported refined petroleum products, largely sourced from the Middle East.
The region has faced growing vulnerability to supply disruptions and rising fuel prices driven by geopolitical tensions, including the recent U.S.-Israeli conflict involving Iran.
Dangote had earlier hinted at plans to replicate his Nigerian refinery model in East Africa during an infrastructure summit in Nairobi last month, where he stated that he could establish a refinery similar to his Lagos-based 650,000-barrel-per-day facility if regional governments were prepared to support the initiative.
