The group’s founder says the listing would put the company in public hands, as its refinery share sale draws retail investors in Lagos.
Aliko Dangote said he aims to list Dangote Fertiliser Ltd in 2027, bringing forward by a year the timetable he gave investors a week earlier.
“Sometime next year we hope to list it. Let it be owned by the people,” Dangote told an investors’ meeting at the Nairobi Securities Exchange on Tuesday. He did not name an exchange, an offer size or a valuation for the listing.
Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York the previous week, Dangote had put the fertiliser listing in 2028, saying the company would become the biggest fertiliser producer in the world. At the Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Abuja in June 2025, he said the business would list on the Nigerian Exchange that year.
Dangote Fertiliser runs a $2.5 billion urea complex at Ibeju-Lekki in Lagos with capacity of about 3 million tonnes a year. Dangote said the company plans six new production lines, with delivery expected between late 2028 and early 2029, taking annual capacity to 12 million tonnes. That would be four times the plant’s current output. On the stated timetable, the listing would come before the new lines are delivered.
The expansion extends beyond Nigeria. In August 2025, Dangote signed an agreement with the Ethiopian government to build a $2.5 billion fertiliser plant in the country’s Somali region. The group has said its expanded fertiliser operation could eventually meet more than 40% of Africa’s fertiliser demand.
The fertiliser plan follows the launch of the public offering for Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE, which is selling 4.1 billion shares at 525 naira each, worth about 2.15 trillion naira.
The offer, which Dangote has called a people’s IPO and which targets 10 million shareholders, closes on Oct. 13. Dangote used the same phrase in Nairobi to describe his aims for the fertiliser listing. The group already controls companies listed in Lagos, including Dangote Cement and Dangote Sugar.
At the same Nairobi meeting, Renaissance Capital presented a proposal to list global depositary receipts backed by refinery shares on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Depositary receipts are certificates that represent shares in a foreign company and trade on a local exchange, in this case allowing Kenyan investors to buy exposure to the refinery in shillings.
“The proposed programme is expected to target up to US$300 million in participation from Kenyan investors,” Renaissance Capital chairman David Kin said, adding that it would be the first unsponsored inward programme of its kind in Africa, subject to approvals and final terms.
Dangote was speaking ahead of the groundbreaking for the group’s planned 700,000 barrel-a-day refinery at Lamu on Kenya’s coast, scheduled for Wednesday, for which he also pledged a Nairobi listing. He told the meeting the group had opened a new shipping unit.
What to watch
The refinery offer closes on Oct. 13, and its final subscription figures will be the first measure of retail demand for a Dangote listing. The group has yet to disclose the exchange, size or structure of the fertiliser offer. In Kenya, the depositary receipt proposal requires regulatory approval before trading can begin.