Forbes: Aliko Dangote’s wealth surges by nearly 100% to $23.9bn, now 86th richest on the planet

Forbes estimates Dangote’s web price at $23.9 billion, primarily resulting from his 92.3 p.c stake in Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals. At 67 years previous, Dangote is as soon as once more one of many prime 100 richest people worldwide, a place he has not held since 2018, in keeping with the Forbes Actual-Time Billionaires Record.

This locations him considerably forward of South African Johann Rupert, who’s ranked 161st on the planet with an estimated wealth of $14.4 billion and really far above Mike Adenuga, who’s the second richest in Nigeria and 481, on the planet, with a web price of $6.8 billion.

Dangote disrupted the federal government’s oil monopoly by setting up the biggest petroleum refinery in Africa. After 11 years, a $23 billion funding, and quite a few challenges, the Dangote Refinery started operations final 12 months. Positioned on an unlimited 6,200-acre web site within the Lekki Free Zone, the refinery, at full capability, will course of a outstanding 650,000 barrels per day (b/d), making it the seventh-largest refinery on the planet and the biggest in Africa. Moreover, the refinery’s adjoining petrochemical complicated has an annual manufacturing capability of three million metric tons of urea, making it Africa’s largest fertiliser producer.

The Dangote Refinery is already having a major impression on international vitality markets. Imports of petroleum into Nigeria are on monitor to succeed in an eight-year low, affecting European refiners which have historically offered to Nigeria, in keeping with vitality intelligence agency Vortexa. Moreover, Nigeria has grow to be a web exporter of jet gas, naphtha (a solvent utilized in varnishes, laundry soaps, and cleansing fluids), and gas oil, in keeping with S&P World.

Dangote sees the refinery as half of a bigger imaginative and prescient to remodel Nigeria, one of many world’s largest crude oil producers, into a significant producer of refined petroleum merchandise. This may allow Nigeria to compete with European refineries and provide gasoline to Nigerian shoppers.

“I need to present a blueprint for industrialisation throughout Africa,” Dangote says in an interview with Forbes. “We’ve got to construct our nation by ourselves. We’ve got to construct our continent by ourselves, not [rely on] overseas funding.” He believes Africa has lengthy been “a mere dumping floor for completed merchandise,” and his refinery represents “a pivotal step in guaranteeing that Africa can refine its personal crude oil, thereby creating wealth and prosperity for its huge inhabitants.”

Dangote stated the refinery is the largest danger of his life and with out success, it will have affected him enormously.

“It was the largest danger of my life,” says Dangote about his resolution to embark on the undertaking. “If this didn’t work, I used to be lifeless.”

Zainab Usman, director of the Africa Programme on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, in keeping with Forbes, stated Nigerians see Dangote as a hero and an actual industrialist reworking the nation.

“He’s seen in most elements of Nigeria as a hero. He’s seen as an actual industrialist who builds issues,” she stated.

A professor of African research on the Soka College of America, Chika Ezeanya, additionally corroborated this view, noting that Dangote is assembly the wants of shoppers on the continent.

“I believe he’s believed staunchly in the truth that Nigerians want merchandise that he has to supply,” he stated whereas including, “Governments can come and go, insurance policies might be modified, however the wants of the Nigerian shopper will solely develop and broaden.”