South African investors eye Dangote refinery stakes

South Africa’s leading pension and investment institutions are eyeing investment opportunities in the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals following a high-level visit to the facility.

According to a statement by the company on Tuesday, the delegation from the South African Government Employees Pension Fund, the Public Investment Corporation, and Alterra Capital Partners toured the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals and Dangote Fertiliser Limited in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.

It was stated that GEPF is Africa’s largest defined-benefit pension fund, managing retirement benefits for more than 1.8 million public sector workers in South Africa, while PIC is the continent’s largest asset manager.

The Chairperson of GEPF, Frans Baleni, described the refinery as evidence that Africa can execute transformational infrastructure projects. “If it can be done anywhere else in the world, it can be done in Africa. This project has shown that the continent is capable of achieving world-class industrialisation at scale,” he said.

Baleni added that the significance of the project extends well beyond Nigeria’s borders.

“What has been built here is reshaping how the world should think about African industrial capability, and it should reshape how Africa thinks about itself. For too long, projects of this magnitude have been associated with other parts of the world.

“The Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals Complex is a powerful demonstration that, with visionary leadership and long-term capital, that perception no longer holds. This is the kind of African-led industrial scale that institutional investors on this continent should be backing,” he said.

The Chief Executive Officer of PIC, Patrick Dlamini, described the refinery as one of the most transformative industrial projects undertaken on the continent. Quoting former South African President Nelson Mandela, Dlamini said, “It always looks impossible until it’s done. This project is redefining the story of Africa and the possibilities of Africa.”

He said PIC, which manages about $230bn in assets largely on behalf of South Africa’s Government Employees Pension Fund, is actively seeking long-term partnerships aligned with infrastructure development, industrialisation, and economic transformation across Africa.

“PIC’s mandate is to deploy long-term, patient capital in the service of industrialisation, infrastructure, and economic transformation across Africa. What we have seen today reinforces our conviction that the next chapter of African prosperity will be written through partnership between African institutional capital and African industrial champions.

“There is real strategic alignment between Dangote’s industrial agenda and how we are positioning our portfolio, and we look forward to exploring meaningful avenues for collaboration,” Dlamini noted.

In his remarks, the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said the planned listing of the Dangote Refinery on the Nigerian Exchange is designed to democratise wealth creation and give Africans direct access to participate in the continent’s industrial transformation.

Dangote emphasised that Africa’s next phase of economic growth must be anchored on large-scale industrial projects capable of creating jobs, strengthening domestic production capacity, and generating broad-based prosperity.

“We are opening the doors for investors to participate directly in Africa’s industrial future and the prosperity it will create,” Dangote said.

According to him, the refinery project reflects the scale of untapped opportunities within Africa’s energy market, particularly as most African countries remain dependent on imported refined petroleum products despite growing industrial demand and rising consumption.

Dangote said the group’s long-term investment strategy is driven by Africa’s expanding energy needs and the urgent requirement for regional refining capacity capable of serving multiple markets across the continent.

The billionaire industrialist noted that demand for products such as polypropylene, aviation fuel, and refined petroleum products has exceeded earlier projections, reinforcing the commercial viability of the refinery and shaping future expansion plans.

“We thought about Nigeria first and then exports, but even with our current production, we are practically living hand to mouth because the market demand is extremely high,” he said.(Punch)