Kenya: Dangote and Nairobi to Launch Lamu Refinery on September 30, 700,000 Barrels Per Day
Kenyan President William Ruto visited the Dangote Group's refinery in Lekki, near Lagos, on September 25, 2026, five days before the groundbreaking ceremony for the Lamu refinery in Kenya, scheduled for September 30, 2026, reports the Kenyan daily The Star. The project aims for a capacity of 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
According to The Star, the investment is estimated at between $15 and $17 billion, or approximately 2 trillion Kenyan shillings, and involves a partnership between the Dangote Group and the Africa Finance Corporation. The plant is intended to process crude oil extracted from the Lokichar fields in Turkana County and subsequently supply refined fuels to markets in East and Central Africa. The Kenyan head of state was accompanied by First Lady Rachel Ruto and several government officials.
A refinery that will also produce its own electricity
During the visit, Aliko Dangote indicated that the Lamu site would produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity, with 500 megawatts intended for sale to the Kenyan state, reports the Nigerian media outlet Nairametrics. For comparison, the Lekki refinery currently has about 500 megawatts. The group also stated its intention to increase the capacity of its Nigerian site from 700,000 to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028-2029.
Refining on-site, an African battle
The continent exports massive amounts of crude oil and re-imports refined fuels paid for in foreign currency, an equation that weighs on trade balances and pump prices. Building a refinery on the Kenyan coast for oil extracted in Turkana follows the same logic defended by several African states regarding their minerals: keeping processing, and therefore value addition, on the continent. Energy security, local value addition, jobs, and industrialization: these are the terms in which William Ruto presented the project, according to The Star.
What remains to be verified
Major African industrial projects are judged less by their announcements than by their ability to meet schedules. In Lamu, the groundbreaking on September 30, 2026, marks the start of a project whose final financial closure, construction timeline, and the share reserved for Kenyan companies and workers have not been publicly detailed at this stage. The question of the volume of crude oil available in Turkana to supply a 700,000-barrel-per-day unit also remains to be addressed.
This article was written in French with the help of artificial intelligence from the sources cited below, then translated from French automatically. Read the original.
