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Africa’s richest industrialist, Aliko Dangote, has announced a major expansion of his flagship refinery complex, revealing plans to transform it into a full-scale industrial hub that will supply key manufacturing inputs across the continent.
The new project, a large-scale petrochemical facility, will produce Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB), a critical raw material used to manufacture surfactants, the active cleaning agents found in soaps, detergents, and cleaning products.
Rather than producing finished detergents, the plant will supply the essential chemical feedstock that detergent manufacturers rely on. Dangote said the move is part of his long-term strategy to deepen Africa’s industrial capacity and reduce dependence on imported chemical inputs.
According to Dangote, the planned facility will produce 400,000 tonnes of LAB annually once completed within 30 months, a figure that would surpass the combined production capacity of existing plants across Africa.
Speaking during a tour of the refinery complex with Bayo Ojulari, Group CEO of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Dangote emphasized the scale of the project:
“That raw material for detergent will be sufficient for the entire African continent. It’s 400,000 tonnes, which we don’t have. The only two are one in Algeria, 100,000 tonnes, and Egypt, 50,000. But we are going 400,000. And we will deliver all this in the next 30 months.”
Currently, Africa relies heavily on imported LAB due to limited local production. Only two plants exist on the continent, making Dangote’s proposed output potentially transformative for regional manufacturing supply chains.
Dangote explained that the $20 billion refinery already the largest in Africa is evolving beyond fuel production into a diversified industrial ecosystem.
With refining operations stabilizing and approaching full capacity, the complex is being repositioned as a multi-product manufacturing zone designed to host petrochemical, industrial, and downstream processing facilities.
“They too will partner with us here because here is not a refinery. It’s an industrial hub,” Dangote said, referring to potential collaboration with NNPC. “That’s why we are doing a Linear Alkyl Benzene plant.”
This transformation signals a strategic shift: rather than operating solely as a fuel processor, the complex is becoming a platform for broader industrialisation.
