Nigeria’s Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals has opened what is being described as Africa’s largest initial public offering, allowing retail and institutional investors to buy shares in the continent’s biggest refinery.
The IPO, which opened on September 14, offers 4.1 billion shares at 525 naira each and aims to raise about 2.15 trillion naira ($1.6 billion). The offer is scheduled to close on October 13, with trading expected to begin later in November.
Investors can purchase a minimum of 10 shares, or 5,250 naira, as Dangote seeks to broaden ownership beyond major institutional investors. The offering is targeting as many as 10 million individual shareholders.
Speaking at the launch, billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote described the listing as more than a corporate transaction, saying it was intended to create a broader opportunity for Nigerians and Africans to participate in the ownership of a major industrial asset.
The refinery, located near Lagos, began operations in 2024 and has reached a processing capacity of 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It has helped transform Nigeria from a major importer of refined petroleum products into an exporter, with growing shipments of diesel and aviation fuel to international markets.
The facility has also become an important supplier to Europe. Reuters reported that the refinery exported about 80,000 barrels per day of jet fuel in the second quarter of 2026, making it Europe’s largest external supplier of jet fuel during a period of tight global fuel markets.
Dangote plans to use the IPO proceeds partly to finance an expansion that would increase refining capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2029. If completed, the expansion would put the refinery ahead of India’s Jamnagar refining complex in terms of capacity.
The refinery reported a $1.82 billion net profit in the first half of 2026, compared with a loss of $476 million in the same period a year earlier, while revenues exceeded $13 billion. The company had also secured $2.5 billion through a private placement in July.
The public offering has already generated strong interest, with several Nigerian investment platforms reporting unusually high traffic after the IPO opened.
For Nigeria, the listing represents a significant development in the country’s capital markets and industrial sector. It also comes as Africa continues to rely heavily on imported refined petroleum products, making the expansion of large-scale refining capacity an important part of the continent’s efforts to reduce dependence on overseas fuel supplies.
The IPO is therefore not only a fundraising exercise for Dangote’s planned expansion, but also a test of how successfully large African industrial assets can attract widespread domestic and regional investment.
