Africa’s largest oil refining complex, Nigeria’s Dangote Petroleum Refinery, is casting a wider net for global capital as it prepares for a future initial public offering, with Caribbean investors now positioned to tap into one of the continent’s most high-profile industrial infrastructure opportunities.
Two financial advisory firms, Marob Strategies and Consulting DIFC Ltd and Lilium Capital Group, announced in a joint statement that they have wrapped up the first phase of a $1 billion underwriting initiative for the Lagos-based refinery, which brought its first production units online in January 2024. Under the terms of the programme, Pan-African Refinery Investment SPV, a dedicated subsidiary of Lilium Capital Group, has already completed and funded a $600 million private placement. An additional $400 million in capital commitments has been secured to support the planned IPO, which the firms stress has not yet launched. The public listing remains contingent on favorable market conditions, full regulatory clearance, and completion of other mandatory requirements.
With the first phase finalized, advisory teams are now actively courting eligible investors across two key regions: Africa and the Caribbean. Target investors include sovereign wealth funds, national and local governments, large institutional investors, and other qualified market participants. For the Caribbean, this initiative marks a rare opportunity to build direct financial ties between the region’s substantial accumulated capital pools, fast-growing African industrial enterprises, and members of the global African and Caribbean diaspora seeking structured, high-impact investment exposure to African markets.
Beyond securing funding for the Dangote refinery itself, the programme carries broader strategic objectives aligned with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) framework. Organizers aim to boost cross-border capital flows between African national markets, democratize ownership of a major pan-African strategic asset, and strengthen the depth and liquidity of the continent’s regional capital markets.
Aliko Dangote, founder, president and chief executive officer of Dangote Industries, hailed the completion of the first underwriting phase as a transformative milestone for both the Dangote Petroleum Refinery Project (DPRP) and African capital markets at large. “This arrangement creates a platform for wider participation by African and Caribbean sovereign wealth funds, governments and institutional investors across Global Africa,” Dangote said in a statement.
Professor Benedict Okey Oramah, chairman of Marob Strategies, noted that the strong early investor response confirms widespread market demand for African-led investment transactions that grant direct access to the continent’s critical, high-value infrastructure assets. “The success of this transaction paves the way for many more such transactions in the future,” Oramah said.
Simon Tiemtoré, chairman of Lilium Capital, added that his firm’s core mission is to bridge the gap between large-scale, transformative investment opportunities across Africa and institutional capital across Global Africa and international markets.
To date, the $600 million private placement has been fully executed and capital disbursed, while the $400 million committed for the IPO will only be drawn down if the public listing moves forward. Advisors behind the programme project that the broader initiative will do more than fund one industrial project: it will mobilize long-term patient capital for African industrialization, strengthen the continent’s energy security, support domestic import substitution, and deepen trade and financial integration. Most notably, it could build durable, mutually beneficial investment ties between Africa, the Caribbean, and the global African diaspora.
Photo captions: (1) A distillation column at the Dangote Refinery, credit: Frank V. Eck; (2) Professor Benedict Oramah, Marob Strategies Chairman; (3) Simon Tiemtoré, Lilium Capital Chairman