Friday, August 8, 2025 - DR Akinwumi Adesina has said that the 24 billion dollars Dangote Petrochemicals Complex in Lagos signalled Africa’s potential to attract global capital for large and globally competitive industrial platforms.
Adesina, the outgoing President of African Development Bank
(AfDB) stated this at the 2025 Standard Chartered Bank Africa Summit recently
held in Lagos.
Adesina said the refinery, now supplying petroleum and
petrochemicals to the Nigerian, other African and global markets showed
Africa’s business viability and profitability in tilting global capital.
He underscored the need for African global corporates to be
strongly supported with financing at scale, to establish global industrial
platforms that will support Africa to be dominant players in critical areas in
which it has comparative advantage.
According to NAN the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and
Petrochemicals is a 650,000 barrels per day (BPD) integrated refinery.
Located in the Lekki Free Zone of Ibeju Lekki Lagos, it is
Africa’s biggest oil refinery and the world’s biggest single-train facility.
To buttress Adesina’s position, African Export-Import Bank
(Afreximbank) on Tuesday announced that it signed a 1.35 billion dollar
financing facility in favour of the refinery.
The facility, according to the Continental Bank, is part of
a larger, approximately 4 billion dollar syndicated financing arrangement for
Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Africa’s largest industrial conglomerate.
Afreximbank said the financing, one of the largest
syndicated loans in recent African financial markets, will refinance capital
expended on constructing the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals
Complex.
Adesina also gave example of the 20 billion dollar Liquified
Natural Gas project in Mozambique as another African business entity that
attracted global capital for large and globally competitive industrial
platforms.
The LNG project, according to him ,attracted the largest
foreign direct investment when it was structured.
Other large corporates identified by Adesina include
Goldfield Limited, one of the world’s largest gold mining firms. In South
Africa with market capitalisation of 17.46 billion dollar.
Naspers Limited, a South African multinational internet,
technology and multimedia holding company with market capitalisation of 14.56
billion dollar.
Others are Vodacom Group with market capitalisation of 12.47
billion dollars and MTN Group with market capitalisation 10.99 billion dollars.
Adesina also revealed that, with Africa accounting for 30
percent of all mineral reserves globally, the continent will shape the future
of global energy transition.
According to him, with huge shares of critical minerals such
as cobalt, platinum, manganese, the continent will shape the future of
manufacturing of electric vehicles, mobile phones, computers and defense
systems.
Adesina said that the rising and intense geopolitical
jostling to access these critical minerals is already shaping global
geopolitics in Africa.
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