Tanzania's richest man eyes $100 million stake in Dangote's planned Kenya oil refinery

Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji has signalled his readiness to commit $100 million to Aliko Dangote's proposed oil refinery in Kenya, throwing his weight behind a project set to become one of Africa's largest refining complexes as the Nigerian industrialist pushes deeper into East Africa.

Dewji disclosed the pledge during an interview on Thursday, saying he was willing to take part in the multi-billion-dollar venture even though he had hoped the plant would rise in his home country. His comments were first reported by Bloomberg.

The offer lands just three days after reports that the refinery, to be developed by the Dangote Group on Kenya's coast, will cost roughly $17 billion (KSh 2.2 trillion) and take about five years to build.

Dewji made no secret of where his preference lay. He said he would rather see the facility built in Tanzania, telling the interviewer, "I would lean more toward Tanzania than in Kenya." Even so, he made clear the location would not close the door on his money.

Talks between the two billionaires have not yet started. Dewji said he intends to open the conversation himself and expects a receptive hearing. "Definitely reach out to him and we can chat about it," he said.

The interest arrives as the Dangote Group fields a steady stream of approaches from investors keen to buy into its expanding refining empire.

The Kenya project was first slated for Tanga, on Tanzania's northern coast, before Dangote moved the proposed site to Lamu, a coastal town in Kenya. The billionaire has said the Kenyan location was chosen for commercial and technical reasons, though he offered little further detail.

That shift has not cooled his appetite for Tanzania. The group is pouring money into a string of projects across the country, among them a new seaport, a 2,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant and a 40-kilometre concrete access road built to ease traffic to the port.

The plans run wider still. Dangote intends to set up a special economic and trade zone, put up a urea fertiliser plant and lay transport links connecting the Indian Ocean port city of Mtwara with Mbamba Bay on Lake Malawi in southern Tanzania, deepening the group's industrial roots in the region.

The proposed Kenyan plant is expected to mirror the Dangote refinery in Lagos. Once running, it would rank among the largest refineries anywhere on the continent and hand fresh refining capacity to a region that has long leaned on imported fuel.

Even as it courts East Africa, the group is spending heavily at home. The Lagos refinery now processes about 650,000 barrels of crude a day, and Dangote plans to lift that to roughly 1.4 million barrels daily over the next few years, a jump that would place the plant among the biggest refining complexes in the world.

Financing for that next phase is already taking shape. The African Export-Import Bank is providing $2.5 billion as part of a wider $4 billion syndicated loan arranged for the project. The group has also signed a $400 million agreement with Chinese equipment maker XCMG Construction Machinery to accelerate development across the refinery complex.

Dewji built the MeTL Group into one of East Africa's largest homegrown conglomerates, with operations spanning manufacturing, agriculture, energy, logistics, textiles and consumer goods. He ranks among Africa's youngest billionaires and its best-known industrialists, having taken the reins of the family business young after studying at Georgetown University and a short stint at McKinsey.

A stake in the Kenya refinery would mark another cross-border bet for a businessman whose ambitions already reach well beyond Tanzania's borders. It would also fold one of East Africa's most recognisable fortunes into a project that has quickly become the region's most closely watched industrial venture.

Whether his $100 million finds its way into the refinery now rests on a conversation that, by his own account, has yet to begin.