The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has emerged as one of the biggest corporate winners of the ongoing US-Iran conflict, with a new Wall Street Journal report revealing that the disruption to Middle Eastern energy supply chains has significantly boosted the fortunes of Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.

According to the report, Dangote’s $20 billion refinery reached full production capacity in February, just in time to meet a surge in global demand for diesel, jet fuel and petrol that no longer needed to transit the volatile Strait of Hormuz.

The newspaper noted that surging demand for refined petroleum products has boosted Dangote’s personal wealth by about $4.86 billion since the start of the year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, pushing his net worth to roughly $34.8 billion.

Devakumar Edwin, Vice-President of Dangote Industries Group, was quoted as saying the company now plans to list the refinery on the Nigerian Exchange later this year, targeting a valuation of at least $50 billion, alongside plans for a secondary listing likely in New York. He said demand for the refinery’s products had grown across sub-Saharan Africa, while exports of jet fuel to Europe had also expanded significantly this year. The company is reportedly planning to expand the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028, an investment expected to cost about $13 billion.

The energy market disruption triggered by the US-Iran conflict has broadly benefited producers outside the Middle East, with Nigeria recording increased demand for both its crude oil and refined petroleum products. This has, in turn, helped support the naira and moderate domestic petrol prices, even as the refinery’s biggest operational hurdle remains a shortage of sufficient local crude, since the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has struggled to supply the volumes required due to existing export obligations and oil-backed loan commitments.

Beyond Nigeria, the report highlighted plans by Dangote to deepen the refinery’s continental reach by acquiring vessels, establishing a distribution hub in Namibia, and building a pipeline to supply landlocked African countries such as Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia. Several African nations, including Ghana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, South Africa and Senegal, have already made formal enquiries or signed supply arrangements with the refinery as they scramble for alternatives to Middle Eastern fuel cargoes.

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