Businessman Aliko Dangote has predicted that the construction of the proposed East Africa refinery in Lamu will take less than 40 months. Mr Dangote said the refinery was on course to be commissioned by 2030. He said this during the groundbreaking ceremony of the proposed facility on Wednesday, September 30.

“I want to assure you all, Mr President and all other respected Presidents and my beloved brother Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed; we will come back here and commission this refinery 40 months from today,” Dangote said.

The refinery will have a capacity of producing 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it one of the biggest in Africa. Dangote said the refinery would produce a wide range of petroleum and petrochemical products including jet fuel, and polypropylene.

“In addition to the crude processing, we are going to produce a wide range of petroleum and petrochemical products like jet fuel and polypropylene as an integrated industrial complex. We are also going to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity,” he said.

The business mogul said the power generation capacity would be twice that of the power plant in his refinery in Lagos, Nigeria.

“The EA refinery is designed to crush about 700,000 barrels of crude (per day). It will also generate 1,000 Megawatts of electricity – (that is) twice that of Lagos,” he said.

Dangote, who had earlier indicated that the Lamu power plant would feed 500MW into the national grid, said the remaining 500MW would be used to run the proposed refinery and other industries.

The refinery, which will be located in Lamu County, will process crude oil from Kenya and other East African countries and supply the region with finished petroleum products. The construction of the facility officially commenced on Wednesday with the groundbreaking ceremony. Heavy-duty construction machines weighing 2,930 metric tonnes have arrived at Lamu port ahead of the commencement of works on the $3.3 billion refinery.

The mogul had earlier estimated the cost of the project at between $15 billion and $16 billion while some industry players have valued it higher than $17 billion. The refinery is expected to play a leading role in the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor.

The groundbreaking event was marred by a land dispute in Chandavai, as residents sought to stop the use of their land for the project. A court ordered a stay of proceedings for the time being and directed that the status quo of the land be maintained until October 14, 2026, when it will resume hearing the petition.

“We are constrained by the court order which seeks to stay all proceedings. While it does not prevent us from proceeding with the groundbreaking, it does pose some challenges to our operations on the site,” Dangote Group said in a statement.