Billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), has reached a new financial milestone, with his net worth climbing to $30.3 billion as of Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The latest increase of $2.25 billion has elevated Dangote to 75th place globally, reaffirming his status as the only African among the world’s top 100 richest individuals.
This achievement follows significant expansion across his industrial empire. Dangote Cement, a subsidiary of DIL, recently opened a massive new plant in Attingué, Côte d’Ivoire. The 50-hectare facility has a production capacity of 3 million tonnes annually, making it one of the group’s largest operations outside Nigeria.
Domestically, Dangote continues to make headway in the oil and gas sector. His $19 billion refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, became operational in May 2023. The 650,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery, which occupies 2,635 hectares in the Lekki Free Zone, began producing diesel on January 12, 2024, and commenced petrol production on September 3, 2024.
On October 22, Dangote revealed plans to list the refinery on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), offering between 5 and 10 percent of its shares to investors within the next year. He also hinted that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, whose stake currently stands at 7.2 percent, could raise its holdings after the refinery’s next expansion phase.
The refinery’s goal is to scale up capacity to 1.4 million bpd, surpassing India’s Jamnagar Refinery, the world’s largest, which produces 1.36 million bpd.
