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Aliko Dangote has been busy building refineries, cement plants and fertilizer factories that are hard to miss. His latest project is a different kind of bet, one being laid quietly along the floor of the Atlantic.
Africa's richest man is developing a massive offshore gas pipeline network that would stretch roughly 1,100 kilometres from the Niger Delta all the way to Lagos, giving Nigeria's industries and his own growing energy complex a reliable, disruption-resistant supply of natural gas.
The project, known as the East-West Offshore Gas Gathering System, or EWOGGS, will consist of twin 38-inch pipelines of approximately 550 kilometres each, running from offshore Bonny Island to the Dangote industrial complex in Lekki, Lagos, with interconnects at six platforms along the route.
Each of the two pipelines carries a capacity of 1.5 billion cubic feet per day, giving the system a combined throughput of 3 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day.
The dual-pipeline design is deliberate. Industry sources say it is meant to prevent the kind of complete shutdown that has previously left factories in Lagos without power when a single onshore line failed. If one pipeline goes down, the other keeps gas moving.
Building offshore rather than overland also adds a layer of security that Nigeria's battered onshore infrastructure has struggled to offer. Land pipelines across the Niger Delta have long been vulnerable to vandalism, theft and sabotage. Taking the route offshore strips away a lot of that exposure and gives potential customers, including major oil companies, more confidence that gas leaving their fields will actually reach its destination.
Dangote has framed the pipeline as part of a broader ambition to enter Nigeria's liquefied natural gas market, currently dominated by Nigeria LNG Limited. "We are building a gas pipeline that will connect the Niger Delta to Olokola," he wrote in a LinkedIn post in mid-2025. "This region is abundant in gas, a resource we already use for our fertilizer plant and ammonia production. This pipeline could become a truly beneficial energy backbone for the country."
Construction is already moving. Most of the pipeline materials have been ordered from manufacturers in China, and some shipments of pipes have arrived in Nigeria, according to people familiar with the project.
The pipeline anchors a larger vision taking shape at the Olokola Free Trade Zone, a coastal industrial area on the border of Ogun and Ondo states in southwestern Nigeria. Dangote submitted paperwork in mid-2025 to develop what he described as Nigeria's largest and deepest seaport at Olokola, located about 100 kilometres from his Lekki-based refinery and fertilizer complex.
Once completed, the port is expected to link the conglomerate's logistics and export operations and rival facilities in Lagos, including the Chinese-funded Lekki Deep Sea Port that opened in 2023.
The port is designed to handle cargo ranging from fertilizer and petrochemicals to liquefied natural gas, and the industrial zone is expected to host manufacturing operations including steel, aluminium and petrochemical plants, creating a cluster of heavy industry linked to the gas supply from the Niger Delta.
Engineering design work and environmental impact assessments for the Olokola development have been completed, though the project still requires final government approvals before full construction can begin.
Dangote's vice-president Devakumar Edwin said in an interview that the group wants "to do a major project to bring more gas than what NLNG is doing today," referring to Nigeria LNG Ltd., a joint venture between the government and Shell, Eni and TotalEnergies, which is currently the continent's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
That is a considerable ambition. Nigeria holds 33% of Africa's gas reserves, estimated at 206.5 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, and has positioned natural gas as the cornerstone of its Decade of Gas initiative running from 2021 to 2030. Yet much of that gas has historically gone monetised well below its potential, partly because the infrastructure to move it reliably simply was not there.
Dangote already uses gas from the Niger Delta to supply his fertilizer plant, where it serves as feedstock to produce hydrogen and ammonia. The EWOGGS pipeline would supercharge that supply and enable the next wave of industrial expansion stretching down Nigeria's southern coast.
The EWOGGS project is co-owned by Dangote Industries and First Exploration and Petroleum Development, and is associated with the 446-kilometre Escravos-Lagos gas corridor.
The scale of what Dangote is assembling now becomes clearer when viewed as a single system: a 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery, one of the world's biggest fertilizer plants, a 1,100-kilometre offshore gas pipeline, and a deep-sea port at the other end. Each piece feeds the others, and together they amount to an integrated industrial corridor the likes of which Nigeria has never seen built by a single private actor.
"It's not that we want to do everything by ourselves," Dangote said in an interview, "but I think doing this will encourage other entrepreneurs to come into it."
