Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote broke ground on a $2.5 billion fuel storage and regional pipeline venture in Walvis Bay, Namibia, on Wednesday, a development that could redraw how fuel is supplied across Southern Africa.
It is among several energy ventures driven by Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest person, as he grows his sprawling business empire across a continent that depends heavily on imported fuel and has been hit hard by the Iran war.
Dangote already runs the largest refinery in Africa, a 700,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) facility in Nigeria that he is currently expanding. He also intends to put up a second 700,000 bpd refinery in Kenya, on the other side of the continent.
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Speaking at the launch event, which Namibian President Nandi-Ndaitwah attended, Dangote said the finished pipeline would boost energy self-reliance for six African nations and turn Walvis Bay into a fuel logistics center.
He added that Namibia stands to ease its supply chain weaknesses, high shipping costs, and serious energy insecurity while also gaining from stronger warehousing infrastructure.
The tank farm is designed to hold roughly 600 million liters, about 4 million barrels, made up of 360 million liters of diesel, with petrol accounting for the rest.
Dangote told journalists that construction should wrap up in 18 to 20 months. At that size, the facility would be eight times larger than Namcor’s 75 million-litre National Oil Storage Facility, which the national oil company runs.
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Dangote also said the terminal could eventually feed a 1,700 km pipeline linking landlocked Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and possibly the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Gerrit van Rooyen, a senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa, described the project as one piece of Dangote’s wider plan to build out fuel distribution networks across Africa for his refined exports. He noted that this would let the company broaden its customer base and lessen its dependence on European and East Asian buyers, where the shift to green energy is expected to gradually cut demand for refined fuel.
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