By Seun Ibiyemi
Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals is moving to deepen Nigerian and African ownership of the multibillion-dollar refinery as it prepares for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) on the domestic capital market.
The refinery’s financial advisers, Marob Strategies and Consulting DIFC Ltd and Lilium Capital Group, announced on Tuesday that the company had secured a $400 million underwriting commitment to support the planned public offering.
The programme also includes a completed and funded $600 million private placement underwritten by Pan-African Refinery Investment SPV, a subsidiary of Lilium Capital Group.
The additional $400 million underwriting commitment will only be executed when the IPO is launched and remains subject to market conditions, corporate and regulatory approvals, definitive documentation and applicable securities laws.
The development comes as Dangote Refinery seeks to transform its ownership structure by giving Nigerian and other African investors an opportunity to acquire direct equity in one of the continent’s largest industrial projects.
The company has applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed $5 billion IPO, although the final size of the offer has yet to be determined.
The planned listing is expected to take place on the Nigerian capital market, with recent reports indicating that the refinery is targeting October 2026 for the launch.
The company has reportedly ruled out an immediate secondary foreign listing, potentially making the proposed offering a major opportunity for Nigeria’s domestic capital market to attract substantial institutional and retail investment.
The advisers said they were coordinating underwriting participation across Global Africa, targeting sovereign wealth funds, governments, institutional investors and other eligible investors.
They added that investor response had been strong, reflecting growing institutional appetite for large-scale African industrial assets.
The proposed IPO comes after a reported $2.5 billion private placement completed in July, which valued the refinery at approximately $40 billion and was reportedly oversubscribed.
Beyond broadening ownership, the planned capital raising is expected to support Dangote Refinery’s next phase of expansion.
The refinery currently has approximately 700,000 barrels per day of crude processing capacity and plans to double this to 1.4 million barrels per day.
The expansion would strengthen the company’s ability to meet demand in Nigeria’s domestic petroleum products market while increasing supplies to other African and international markets.
READ ALSO:NPERA begins operations, targets fair port tariffs, faster cargo clearance
The refinery has also expanded its presence in international fuel markets, with reports indicating that it has supplied jet fuel to markets across Africa and Western Europe amid disruptions to global fuel supplies linked to conflicts in the Middle East.
For Nigeria, the proposed listing could have wider implications beyond Dangote Refinery itself.
A successful multibillion-dollar IPO could deepen the domestic capital market, broaden local participation in a major industrial asset and demonstrate the capacity of Nigerian financial markets to mobilise long-term capital for large-scale infrastructure and industrial projects.
The transaction would also give investors greater exposure to Nigeria’s refining and downstream petroleum industry at a time when the country is seeking to reduce dependence on imported refined petroleum products and strengthen domestic refining capacity.
If completed as planned, the IPO could therefore represent both a major ownership transition for Dangote Refinery and a significant test of the Nigerian capital market’s capacity to finance Africa-scale industrial expansion.
