A senior official declared on Tuesday that the Dangote refinery in Nigeria intends to float on both the Nigerian and London stock markets simultaneously.
Aliko Dangote, the chairman of the Dangote group, was cited in media sources on Tuesday as saying he might try to list the business in Nigeria by the end of the year.
An executive at the Dangote refinery, Devakumar Edwin, told Reuters that the refinery’s exclusive listing in London would be too much for the Nigerian Stock Exchange to handle alone.
He explained, “We’ve listed all of our firms. The NSE (Nigerian Stock Exchange) will not have sufficient depth to handle the petroleum refinery alone. We would have to take it to the LSE (London Stock Exchange) and also list it on the NSE.”
In addition, Dangote Cement, Dangote Flour Mills, and Dangote Sugar—all of which are traded on the Nigerian stock exchange—are owned by the wealthiest man in Africa.
The $20 billion refinery, which is Africa’s largest, was constructed after multiple years of delays and is situated on a peninsula near the edge of Lagos, the continent’s commercial hub. When it reaches full capacity this year or next, it will be the largest refinery in Africa and Europe. It has a capacity of up to 650,000 barrels per day (bpd). Dangote has been making efforts to supply the refinery with crude oil.
Recently, the Dangote refinery signed an agreement with TotalEnergies, a major oil supplier, to provide crude oil to the facility. Despite being situated in the oiliest country in Africa, the refinery has recently had to import oil from the US.
Scheduled start of PMS refinement
Aims for the refinery to begin producing PMS align with the plant’s intended listing on the NGX and LSE.
In contrast to Standard and Poor’s (S&P) analysts’ earlier statements that a more realistic timeframe for PMS rollout would be in the fourth quarter of the year, the refinery chairman, Alhaji Dangote, had earlier claimed that PMS refining would commence next month.
The Dangote refinery was only able to start distributing aviation fuel and diesel around eight months after it was put into service in May of last year. The refinery has a history of missing production schedules.
The refinery aims to drastically cut energy imports into Nigeria and throughout West Africa.
According to a previous article from The News Chronicles, when the refinery reaches full capacity, numerous European refineries that are primarily involved in exporting gasoline would close, drastically lowering the $17 billion gasoline import market to Africa.
