Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, and his $ 12 billion refinery project

"I love Arsenal, and I'm going to buy it, but first I have a refinery to build"

© Evan Agostini / AP / SIPA

On his yacht in Lagos, he talks about his ambitious project of a giant oil refinery, and his intention to buy Arsenal football club

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David Pilling, FT

As a general rule, oil refineries are not a subject that excites me. But the one that is gradually forming on 2,500 hectares of marshlands on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital, Lagos, a Mad Max city, is so huge, so daring, and maybe so transforming the country that it is a bit like Africa's 'One walked on the moon', or its Panama Canal: a Giza pyramid of the industrial age.

If Aliko Dangote, the billionaire businessman who is behind what he too calls a "crazy project" of 12 billion dollars, succeeds his coup, he will pass to posterity as all John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon of Africa. And then, he intends to give himself a little whim: he will buy Arsenal, his favorite football club.

"When we finish this project, for the first time in history, Nigeria will be the Africa's largest exporter of petroleum products, "he told me. The most banal of platitudes for a pharaonic ambition project. I sit with the richest man in Africa, and I conjure up the superlatives of his life eating Thai on his 33-meter-long yacht moored in Lagos Lagoon. The image projected by Aliko Dangote is more like that of a salesman of modest-income encyclopedias.

When I arrive on the platform, Dangote, who is a Muslim, is praying in his quarters. He comes to greet me soon and turns out to be the most attentive of the guests. "Feel like home," he says. "We can hang that for you," he adds, as I put my crumpled jacket on the yacht's white leather sofa. "Can we offer you something to drink?"

Dangote reviews the options available to us: "There are vegetable spring rolls, chicken wings with barbecue sauce, curry Thai green, a kind of seafood salad, noodles. You are my guest, so what do you want? Rice ? Jasmine, nature, with egg? "
I opt for jasmine.

" You do not eat an egg? "He asked.

You asked me to choose One, I protest. "

" It sounds like satay, "I said, pointing to one of the plates.

" It's satay, actually. "

I serve several dishes with a spoon – it's always fun to be served by a billionaire – and we launch. It's good, and there is a plate of green chili sauce to liven up the taste buds. Dangote crunches into a spring roll and ignores the phone buzzing softly on the table

Pharaonic Refinery

Some figures on the refinery will help to understand the extent of his "madness". When it becomes operational – if it ever is – it will process 650,000 barrels of oil a day, a third of every drop of oil produced by Nigeria, and nearly 1% of global production. This will make it the largest oil refinery of its kind in the world. Then, it will produce all the plastic that the 190 million Nigerians need (or which they think they need), without […]