Aliko Dangote's refinery IPO could add $60 billion to Nigeria's stock market

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote's refinery share sale could add about $60 billion to the value of the Nigerian Exchange if investors take up every share, the country's trade minister said Wednesday.

Jumoke Oduwole, minister of industry, trade and investment, called the initial public offering of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals a milestone for Nigeria's investment climate, its industrial base and its capital market. The listing that follows, she said in a statement, would draw new investors and prove the market can carry companies of that scale.

The offer opened Monday and runs until Oct. 13. It puts 4.1 billion new shares on sale at N525 each, so a full take-up would raise about N2.15 trillion ($1.63 billion). Ten shares, or N5,250, is the minimum ticket, and the company can issue up to 30% more shares if demand outruns supply, subject to regulatory approval.

How the numbers stack up

Oduwole's $60 billion figure is a projection rather than a number from the offer documents. At the N525 offer price, BusinessDay put the refinery's indicative value at about N65 trillion ($49 billion). The exchange's entire equity market was worth N157.59 trillion ($118.66 billion) on Sept. 11, so even the lower figure would lift it by more than 40%.

Either way, analysts estimate the refinery would account for roughly a quarter of the NGX by value once listed, widening the exchange's lead over Casablanca and Cairo as Africa's second-largest market after Johannesburg.

A reform story, in the minister's telling

Oduwole framed the deal as proof that regulatory change can pull capital into production. Less than three years ago, she said, free zone companies such as the refinery could not tap Nigeria's capital market, a constraint investors raised with her ministry directly.

That changed after the Securities and Exchange Commission, free zone authorities and the exchange worked out a path, she said, and after President Bola Tinubu signed the Investments and Securities Act, 2025, followed by SEC rules for public offers by free trade zone entities.

"This is not simply a capital-market story; it is an industrialization story," Oduwole said.

She credited Dangote and his group for sustained investment in Nigeria and described the 650,000-barrel-a-day plant as one of Africa's largest private industrial projects, one that has cut the country's reliance on imported fuel.

The government's aim, she added, is to turn investment pledges into operating projects, exports and jobs, and to give investors a market where they can "build at scale, mobilize capital at scale and compete globally."

Dangote, meanwhile, has said he is willing to dilute his stake further to bring in more retail investors, and has spoken of drawing millions of Nigerians onto the shareholder register.