Dangote Group is targeting $36 billion in revenue, according to a report by The News Nigeria, as Kenyan President William Ruto's government throws its weight behind a proposed $17 billion refinery project on Kenyan soil.

The figure anchors a broader ambition for the Nigerian conglomerate, whose 650,000-bpd Dangote refinery outside Lagos has reshaped West African fuel supply since it began ramping up operations in 2024. The reported revenue target, if reached, would place the group among Africa's largest industrial earners by turnover.

The Kenya proposal, valued at $17 billion, sits at the centre of the plan. President Ruto's endorsement, as reported by the Nigerian outlet, marks the most explicit political backing yet for a project that would give Dangote a second refining foothold on the continent — this time in East Africa, where Kenya currently depends on the aging 100,000-bpd Changamwe refinery at Mombasa, shut to crude processing since 2013 and limited to terminal operations.

Details of the proposed Kenyan scheme — its capacity, site, configuration and timeline — remain undisclosed in the report. That gap matters. A $17 billion capital estimate implies a complex of well over 300,000 bpd at recent greenfield construction costs, which would rank among the largest downstream investments ever sanctioned in sub-Saharan Africa. Until Dangote confirms basic engineering scope, the project belongs in the appraisal-stage column, not the sanctioned one.

What is clear is the political runway. Ruto's government has courted large-scale industrial investment as part of its economic agenda, and a refinery of that scale would serve a Kenyan market that imports virtually all its refined products, sourced largely from the Gulf and, increasingly, from the Dangote facility itself via seaborne cargoes.

For Dangote, the Kenyan push extends a pattern. The group has used its Lagos mega-refinery — Africa's largest single-train crude unit — to displace European and Middle Eastern imports across the West African coast, and has signalled interest in export markets from Angola to Cameroon. An East African hub would shorten supply lines into a region where product demand growth runs ahead of local refining capacity.

The $36 billion revenue projection should be read as a company ambition rather than a forecast. Reuters reported in 2024 that the Lagos refinery alone could generate revenue in the tens of billions of dollars annually at full utilisation, but actual offtake depends on crude supply terms with Nigerian producers, product crack spreads, and the pace at which Dangote displaces incumbent suppliers in target markets. Trade analysts remain divided on how quickly the facility can reach nameplate throughput.

In Kenya, the project would face its own economics: competition from imported products, the question of crude sourcing — Kenya's domestic production is negligible at under 10,000 bpd — and regional integration through the East African Community market that a new refiner would need to capture to justify the capital outlay.

Neither Dangote Group nor the Kenyan State House has published an investment framework, offtake agreement or FID timetable for the $17 billion scheme. The report does not specify whether the Kenyan government would take an equity stake or limit its role to fiscal and regulatory support.

Watch items: a formal FID and capacity announcement for the Kenyan refinery; Dangote's utilisation rate and audited revenue figures from the Lagos facility against the $36 billion target; and any Kenyan legislative or fiscal package attached to the project in Nairobi.