Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man, has committed to leading the construction of a major oil refinery in Tanzania, telling the presidents of Kenya and Uganda at a Nairobi summit on Thursday that he would replicate his 650,000-barrel-per-day Lagos complex in East Africa if regional governments backed the initiative.
- •The proposed facility would be located in Tanga, a port city in northeastern Tanzania, supported by a pipeline from the Kenyan port of Mombasa, and designed to process crude from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda.
- •Dangote set a four-to-five year delivery timeline, conditional on agreement from three or four regional governments.
- •The AFC's State of Africa's Infrastructure Report 2026, released at the same summit, projects Africa's fuel import shortfall will reach 86 million tonnes by 2040, equivalent to almost three Dangote-sized refineries.
"I can give commitment to the two presidents that are here: if they will support the refinery, we'll build the identical one that we have in Nigeria - 650,000 barrels," Dangote said during a panel session at the inaugural Africa We Build Summit 2026, hosted by the Africa Finance Corporation at the JW Marriott Hotel in Nairobi.
The announcement lands as East Africa confronts acute pressure on fuel supply chains. The Iran conflict has disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, exposing a region that sources up to three quarters of its refined fuel from the Middle East.
President William Ruto framed the project as a shared regional asset. "We're going to have a joint refinery in Tanga to benefit all of us because that refinery is going to take on board the oil from DRC, the oil from Kenya, the oil from South Sudan, and the oil from Uganda," he said.
He also confirmed Kenya would invest in Uganda's separate 60,000-barrel-per-day domestic refinery, saying the two countries were committed to the future of their resources together.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni confirmed Uganda would supply crude to the Tanga facility and said the East African Crude Oil Pipeline could also serve the DRC and South Sudan.
The broader discussion extended to Africa's raw material export problem. Museveni illustrated the cost of inaction, citing an Indian investor who had been buying Uganda's iron ore at US$45 per tonne and reselling it at US$900 per tonne. "And that means we export all the jobs created. So I stopped them," he said.
Ruto was equally direct. "Our ambitions will remain unrealized if we continue to depend on external capital whose primary interest is securing raw materials for their own industries," he said. "We are constrained only by the extent that we accept the status quo through acquiescence, complacency, and limited ambition."
Dangote also said he plans to establish around 20 fertiliser blending plants across Africa by 2028. The summit continues on Friday.
