Dangote takes 25% of Kenya pipeline in push to sell Lagos fuel across Africa

Dangote Industries has bought a 25 per cent stake in Kenya's petroleum products pipeline network, the first concrete step in a plan to move fuel from its Lagos refinery into markets across East, Central and Southern Africa.

Aliko Dangote, the group's president and chief executive, disclosed the expansion in a conversation with Financial Times journalist David Pilling. BusinessDay put the Kenyan stake at $327 million. Dangote said the deal went through with backing from the Kenyan government.

For Nigerian readers, the plan matters in two ways. It gives the 650,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos more buyers outside Nigeria, and it could shape how much fuel is available and at what price across the region in the years ahead.

Where the fuel will go

According to Dangote, the group is developing a supply corridor from Djibouti to Addis Ababa, with tank farms to store and move products into landlocked Ethiopia. A project in Cameroon is close to completion, though he gave no details in the published remarks.

Namibia is being set up as the gateway to Southern Africa. Dangote said the sea journey from the Lagos refinery to Namibia takes about four days, and fuel would be distributed from there to Botswana and South Africa. Routes through Zimbabwe and Zambia are also being studied.

He said the group is moving quickly on depots, pipelines and logistics. Asked about those plans, he said: "We are very aggressive with that."

Beyond distribution, Dangote wants to build a refinery at Lamu in Kenya with capacity of about 700,000 barrels per day. He said the plant would buy crude from several sources rather than depend only on Kenyan or Ugandan oil, and that Lamu was chosen for its deep water and marine facilities. The decision took about four months, he said, though he alleged that commercial rivals tried to stall the project in court shortly before it was announced. No court finding was cited.

Protect local industry, he urges

Dangote used the interview to press African governments to shield young manufacturers from unfettered imports, arguing that developed economies do the same. "If America is now saying, no, we are going to protect our industries, who are we in Africa not to protect our own industries?" he asked.

Letting imports push out local production, he said, amounts to "exporting our jobs out of the continent and importing poverty into the continent."

He listed weak power supply, fragile financial systems and poor industrial policy as the continent's biggest obstacles, noting that about 650 million Africans still have no electricity.

The group has set aside roughly $50 billion for investment between 2026 and 2030. "The legacy we are trying to set up is how do we industrialise our continent?" Dangote said.

What happens next

Watch for details of the Kenyan pipeline stake and the Lamu refinery, and for whether other African governments offer the kind of protection Dangote is asking for. The group's spending plans through 2030 will show how far the network actually stretches.