Africa's Richest Man Hires India-Owned Firm For $16 Billion Kenya Refinery

Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest person, has hired the engineers that built his Lagos refinery to work on the new crude processing plant in Kenya that he is set to start constructing this month. 

Engineers India Ltd., which is majority-owned by the Indian government, signed a $450 million deal with Dangote to oversea the construction of planned 700-000 barrels-per-day greenfield refinery and petrochemical plant that will be located in the coastal town of Lamu in Kenya, the firm said in filing on the Mumbai stock exchange.

"Once completed, this project will be critical in strengthening fuel production within East Africa, reducing reliance on imports, and supporting regional energy security," Engineers India, or EIL, said in the filing.

The Kenyan plant will complement Dangote's Lagos refinery, whose capacity is planned to double to 1.4 million barrels a day by 2029. It expands Dangote's footprint into East Africa, extending his reach from the Atlantic to Indian Ocean as well as the global energy market. Dangote said this month that work will start on the refinery by the end of September and will cost $16 billion to complete.

Alongside the refinery, Dangote plans to build a pipeline that connects Lamu to Ethiopia as well as another link from Djibouti to Ethiopia, under plans to build 4,000 kilometer network of pipelines connecting landlocked countries in the region. 

EIL, operating under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas of the government of India, was the consultant for Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Fze's in Lagos and is also overseeing its ongoing expansion. 

Dangote, who currently has a net worth of $35.5 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, plans to spend as much as $50 billion over the next four years to expand his business empire on the continent, after setting a target of $100 billion in revenues for the Dangote Group by 2030.

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