President/Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has He warned that warned that allowing imported products to displace locally manufactured goods would deepen economic hardship and weaken domestic industries, in Africa.
He argued, that Africa’s industrial development would depend on policies that protect local manufacturers, strengthen productive capacity and retain jobs within the continent.
He stated this during a conversation with Financial Times journalist David Pilling where he also disclosed plans to expand the Dangote group’s petroleum distribution network across Africa.
This follows the acquisition of a 25 per cent stake in Kenya’s petroleum products pipeline network, as he called on African governments to protect domestic industries against unfair foreign competition.
Dangote said the group was pursuing investments in pipelines, storage facilities and supply corridors across East, Central and Southern Africa to address petroleum supply constraints and improve the movement of refined products between markets.
The group, he revealed, was developing a distribution corridor linking Djibouti to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, while projects in Cameroon and Namibia were also at various stages of development.
He said the group’s investment in Kenya’s pipeline network was part of a broader plan to establish an integrated petroleum distribution system across the continent.
“We are very aggressive with that,” Dangote said in response to a question about the group’s plans to develop depots, pipelines and other petroleum distribution infrastructure.
“Just let me tell you, yesterday, with the support from the President of Kenya, we bought 25 per cent of the pipeline network for the distribution of petroleum products,” he said.
Dangote identified Namibia as a strategic location for supplying refined petroleum products from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos to markets in Southern Africa, including Botswana and South Africa.
“From our refinery to Namibia is just about four days of steaming,” he said, outlining plans for a distribution corridor through Zimbabwe and Zambia, with strategically located storage and transportation facilities intended to serve several countries.
The expansion comes alongside the group’s plan to establish a refinery in Lamu, Kenya, with a proposed capacity of approximately 700,000 barrels per day.
Dangote said the investment was informed by East Africa’s industrial and mining activities, growing energy requirements and persistent difficulties in accessing diesel and other petroleum products.
He explained that the proposed refinery would source crude oil from different markets rather than rely exclusively on production from Uganda or Kenya.
According to him, the choice of Lamu followed technical assessments of several locations, with access to deep water, marine facilities and sufficient water resources among the key considerations.
The richest man in Africa said the investment decision was reached within four months, although he alleged that commercial interests had attempted to frustrate the project through legal proceedings shortly before its public unveiling.
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