Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has expressed confidence in his current project of building one of the world’s biggest refineries in Lagos.

He noted that when the plants start operations in the next two years, he is expecting total group revenue to grow to about $30 billion from $4 billion. Dangote also says that he plans to include investing about 60% of profit outside Africa, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

On Dangote Cement, Dangote said that the expansion plan includes broadening his cement capacity on the continent by 29% to 62 million tons, thereby entrenching his flagship company’s position as the continent’s biggest producer of the construction material.

According to the billionaire, six million tons will be added in Nigeria next year, taking volume in Dangote Cement Plc’s home market to 35 million tons.

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Dangote also said other expansion plans are geared towards West Africa, including Niger and Cote d’Ivoire.

The 62-year-old told shareholders in June that the company planned to open plants in Nigeria that would allow it export clinker to grinding plants in Cameroon and West Africa.

It could be recalled that the refinery was projected to fully commence its operations by the first quarter of 2020. However, there had been worries that the timeline might no longer be feasible as there were challenges that could see the 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery commence its operations not earlier than the end of next year (2020).

This is contrary to Dangote’s announcement last year, during the FT Africa Summit in London, that he expected the technical work on the refinery to be completed by the end of 2019 and actual operation to commence in 2020.

Dangote Cement reported a 6% increase in profit for the 6 months through June to N119.5 billion ($331 million).

Samson Oyedeyi