Aliko Dangote's empire is on course to double revenue to $36 billion in a single year

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote's industrial group is on track to double its revenue to $36 billion this year, its chief strategy officer said, after the Lagos refinery's first full stretch at capacity lifted first-half sales to about $17 billion.

"The revenues of the group have grown significantly over the last five years. From $18 billion last year, we are on track to get to $36 billion this year. Our half-year revenue is already about $17 billion," Aliyu Suleiman said during a tour of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery by Kenyan President William Ruto at the weekend.

The arithmetic is striking on its own. Dangote Group has spent decades building cement, sugar and fertilizer businesses whose combined revenue reached $18 billion in 2025. The refinery, which hit full 650,000-barrel capacity in February and now runs at 700,000 barrels a day, has nearly matched that in six months. It reported an after-tax profit of $1.82 billion for the first half, against a loss of $476 million for all of 2025.

Suleiman framed the number inside a larger plan. The group executed about $50 billion in capital spending between 2020 and 2025, he said, and "over the next five years, we're going to spend double of what we did previously." The projects span refining, ports, gas infrastructure, LNG, upstream oil, power and mining, under a Vision 2030 strategy aimed at a $100 billion enterprise. He said opportunities already identified could push the group past that figure.

The Kenyan refinery is central to it. "The East African refinery in Kenya is going to be a key component of our journey and our dream to get to $100 billion," Suleiman said. The 700,000-barrel Lamu plant, estimated at about $17 billion, breaks ground on Wednesday, Sept. 30, with Ruto expected to lead the ceremony; Engineers India signed a $450 million contract last week to manage its engineering and construction.

Ruto, who flew to Lagos after the U.N. General Assembly, said the visit had deepened his confidence in the project. "This is not a Kenyan refinery; it is going to be a regional refinery," he said, adding that Kenya had secured the land and would clear administrative bottlenecks. "The Government of Kenya is 100 per cent behind this project."

Back in Lagos, the group is adding a second 750,000-barrel crude distillation unit to take the refinery to 1.4 million barrels a day, a target it has put at 2028 to 2029. The refinery's public offering, seeking N2.15 trillion ($1.6 billion), closes Oct. 13, and Dangote has said the fertilizer business will follow with an IPO in 2028.

The export figures explain the revenue. Nigeria's seaborne refined-product shipments to Europe averaged 130,000 barrels a day in the second quarter, up from 15,000 in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration citing Vortexa data. Almost all of that is one plant, and the plant is about to have a twin.