Africa's richest man picks Kenya over Tanzania for a $17 billion refinery

Aliko Dangote has made his choice. Africa's richest man said on Saturday he is leaning toward Kenya's port city of Mombasa as the site for a proposed $15 to $17 billion oil refinery in East Africa, a significant shift away from Tanzania's Tanga port, where the project had originally been announced.

"I'm leaning more towards Mombasa because Mombasa has a much larger, deeper port," Dangote told the Financial Times in an interview published May 10. "Kenyans consume more. It's a bigger economy."

The proposed facility would process 650,000 barrels of crude per day, matching the capacity of his Lagos refinery, currently the world's largest single-train plant. Dangote said crude could be shipped directly to Mombasa, removing any dependency on the pipeline running 1,500 kilometers from Uganda's oil fields to Tanga.

Dangote was direct about what he needs to proceed. He wants land, a contribution from East African governments toward financing, and, critically, protection against what he called the dumping of cheap refined fuel from Russia and India.

"There is no refinery in the world that can survive without that protection," he said. "If we have an agreement, we can start this year."

He placed the entire decision with Kenya's president. "The ball is in the hands of President Ruto. Whatever President Ruto says is what I'll do." He left a narrow opening for Tanzania, saying he could still site the refinery there "if they can sort themselves out."

The shift comes after a diplomatic flashpoint last week. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan publicly rebuked her Kenyan counterpart during Ruto's state visit to Dar es Salaam on May 4, saying she had not been consulted before Ruto and Dangote announced the Tanga project at an infrastructure summit in Nairobi in late April.

East Africa currently imports every liter of refined petroleum it consumes, largely from the Middle East. The US-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have hit the region hard, driving fuel prices up and exposing how vulnerable the supply chain is.

Dangote said the Iran conflict has been commercially advantageous for his Lagos refinery. Fertilizer prices have doubled. Jet fuel margins have widened. He is already pressing ahead with plans to more than double Lagos capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day within 30 months, a buildout that would put him on par with Reliance Industries in terms of refining scale.

A Mombasa refinery, if it proceeds, would position Kenya as the dominant fuel hub across East and Central Africa, serving Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.