Africa’s richest man was in Nairobi this week and made a big announcement that caught may off-guard and left officials scrambling for answers.
Aliko Dangote, appearing on a panel with the heads of state from Uganda and Kenya, as well as the Africa Finance Corporation chief, declared his plans to construct a refinery capable of producing 650,000 barrels-per-day in East Africa within five years or less.
As The Africa We Build Summit 2026, concluded on Thursday, and Mr Dangote’s promise of $40 billion to invest in various fields, indulging a signature refinery, sank in, the question commentators asked was, where does this leave Uganda’s refinery, whose final investment decision is scheduled for July this year?“My commitment is, if we agree here, with the three or four governments, we will lead and make sure that the refinery is built within the next four to five years,” Mr Dangote said, referring to Kenya and Uganda, whose leaders sat next to him, endorsing his project, as well as Tanzania, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the other countries that would supply crude.“Even now I can give commitment to the two presidents who are here, if they will support the refinery, we will build the identical one to what we have in Nigeria,” the industrialist said.
Moments earlier, Kenya’s President Willian Ruto said his country would reciprocate Uganda’s decision to invest in Kenya Pipeline, by also investing in Uganda’s $4 billion refinery and in the future of the two countries resources.
However, President Ruto then appeared to pivot to an unheralded joint regional refinery in Tanga, Tanzania, as critical item of energy security infrastructure being discussed between Dangote and other governments, to benefit East Africa.“By the way, we are discussing a refinery in Tanzania…we are not discussing a refinery in Kenya or Uganda. We are going to have a joint refinery in Tanga, to benefit all of us,” Dr Ruto said.“That refinery is going to take on board the oil from DRC, the oil from Kenya, the oil from South Sudan and the oil from Uganda, and we will just need to build a short pipeline from Tanga to Mombasa, and the finished product will use the pipeline that we already jointly own with Uganda,” he added.
President Yoweri Museveni has spent years quarrelling with executives of upstream operators in Uganda’s oilfields, French supermajor TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation, to invest in his pet project, which will produce refined products for East Africa and wean the region from imported fuel.
On this occasion, Mr Museveni had to recalibrate his answer when asked by the moderator, to comment on Dangote’s pitch.“We shall build a small refinery which we had already planned, of 60,000 barrels per day, because this was for the internal market of Uganda, parts of Tanzania, and parts of Kenya which are near Uganda. But the surplus crude we shall contribute to the East African refinery, the one of Tanga.
The EastAfrican sought comment from Dangote Group, about the project’s plan for crude supply as only South Sudan and DRC are an oil producer and exporter, while Uganda is getting ready for the first crude exports in the 2026/27 financial year, with Kenya yet to embark drilling and upstream development of its oilfields in the South Lokichar basin.
Even with all producing oil, the four countries can only meet less than half the daily demand, with a total of 170,000 barrels from Uganda, 94,000 from South Sudan, 17,000 from the DRC while Kenya’s production from its 585 million barrels that are recoverable, remains unknown. Dangote’s refinery in East Africa also pushes the region into new investments in crude and refined products infrastructure.
According to Gabriel Obiang Mbaga Lima, former Equatorial Guinea minister for hydrocarbons, pipeline networks are crucial for Africa to build internal fossil fuels-based energy markets that will reverse some of the continent’s crises.“We export crude at $60 and import fuel at $100. That’s already a deficit,” he said, alluding to the Central Africa Pipelines System (CAPS), a $30 billion project he heads, planned to link 11 countries with a network that connects oil producing and refining countries to those that lack oil, to end high import bills for petroleum products.
The immediate reading of Mr Dangote’s push into East Africa’s downstream is that it will change the dynamics of the oil industry, with Uganda potentially losing a good chunk of the market that it targeted with its own refinery.
The announcement that Kenya intends investment in Uganda’s Kabaale refinery also took officials at the Uganda National Oil Company (Unoc) by surprise, and it remains unclear what stake Nairobi intends to take in the project.“I am not aware of this, unfortunately,” said Tony Otoa, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Unoc.
These developments come just weeks after a delegation of parastatals from Uganda’s oil and gas sector undertook a visit to the multibillion-dollar Dangote Refinery in Lagos, to mirror their implementation of Uganda’s own refining with the Dangote outfit, including the project’s delivery model, financing structure, operational readiness and workforce development strategy.“The engagement provided valuable lessons to support Uganda’s refinery development, particularly in strengthening governance, technical capability and large-scale project execution,” Unoc posted on X.
From inception, President Museveni sold the Kabaale refinery as an East African project, with Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda invited to take up shareholding in the facility, but lukewarm interest saw Kampala abandon this model.
At the Africa We Build Summit in Nairobi, President Ruto highlighted plans for the shared project, saying it would integrate crude supplies from producers in East Africa.“We’re going to have a joint refinery to benefit all of us,” he said.
