October 23, (THEWILL) — The founder of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has said that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery plans to sell 5 percent to 10 percent of its stake on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited within the next year.
Speaking in an interview with S&P Global, Dangote said the move will mirror the approach adopted for Dangote Cement and Dangote Sugar Refinery.
“We don’t want to keep more than 65%-70%,” Dangote said.
He added that the shares would be offered gradually, depending on investor appetite and market depth.
The billionaire businessman also said the group is considering strategic partnerships with Middle Eastern companies to support the refinery’s expansion and the development of a new petrochemicals project in China.
“Our business concept is going to change. Now instead of being 100 percent Dangote-owned, we’ll have other partners,” he said.
Speaking on the existing 7.2 percent stake of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited in the Refinery, Dangote said NNPC could increase its stake but not until the next phase of the project’s growth is fully underway.
He said, “I want to demonstrate what this refinery can do, then we can sit down and talk.”
Also, the refinery announced plans to increase its output to 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), a scale that would surpass the world’s largest 1.36 million bpd refinery in Jamnagar, India.
Furthermore, Dangote said the company is also developing linear alkylbenzene and base oils projects and aims to increase polypropylene production from 1 million metric tonnes to 1.5 million metric tonnes annually in the coming years.
Speaking on the refinery’s residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) maintenance plans, Dangote acknowledged that while most of the technical issues had been resolved, a few still lingered.
“We have resolved most, not all, but most of the problems. And I think we’re looking for a window when we shut down for another month,” he said, adding that the planned turnaround would be carefully scheduled to avoid clashing with the year-end surge in fuel demand
The group president also said production from the company’s upstream assets in the Niger Delta — oil mining leases (OML) 71 and 72 — is expected to begin this month, with output projected to reach up to 40,000 barrels per day.
Dangote added that while the group remains open to new upstream opportunities, the focus for now is on consolidating ongoing projects.
Commenting on the dismissal of 800 staff members, Dangote said the refinery’s reorganisation was nearly complete and had helped ease recent tensions with labour unions.
“We don’t have any worries with the unions,” he added.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
