(AfriquesPlus) - Aliko Dangote didn't start the war in Iran, but he's certainly profiting from it. Africa's wealthiest man has grown more than $5 billion richer as global fuel supplies tightened, largely thanks to his $20 billion Lagos refinery, which has become a lifeline for buyers across the continent and beyond, The New York Times reports in a piece by Saikou Jammeh, filed from Dakar and published August 19, 2026.
Dangote, 69, built much of his fortune manufacturing basics like salt, sugar and cement in Nigeria. But it's his new oil refinery that's now driving his wealth, having seen demand for petroleum products spike since the conflict began in February, according to the Times.
The timing could hardly have been better: the facility became fully operational just weeks before the U.S. bombed Iran. Africa, despite sitting on abundant crude, still depends heavily on imported fuel — and that supply chain has been badly disrupted. Ukrainian strikes have choked off Russian refined-product shipments to the continent, while flows from Europe and the Persian Gulf have dropped sharply since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a channel that normally carries up to a fifth of the world's oil supply, the newspaper notes.
The numbers tell the story of Dangote's rise. His refinery shipped jet fuel to the U.S. market for the first time ever this year, the company told the Times. Daniel Evans, a vice president at S&P Global Energy, described the Dangote plant as "the world's single largest exporter of jet fuel" in April and May. By last month, according to Dangote Industries vice president Devakumar Edwin, the refinery had become Europe's largest supplier of jet fuel and diesel.
The momentum hasn't stopped there. On Tuesday, Dangote Refinery announced it had secured $1 billion in financial backing from a Dubai-based investment group ahead of a planned listing on the Nigerian stock exchange — a deal that, if completed, would be Africa's largest-ever public offering, per the Times.
"When the war broke out, traders and governments from all around the world — especially in Africa — started calling us for supplies," Edwin told the paper. "The crude oil prices have gone up, but the product prices have increased a lot more."
A Continent Starved of Its Own Fuel
The irony is stark: nearly two dozen African nations produce crude oil, yet most of the continent's roughly nine million barrels a day get exported for refining elsewhere, since most domestic refineries sit dormant, the Times reports. Nigeria alone has poured billions of dollars into rehabilitating its three state refineries; not one is currently running.
When the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28, African nations scrambled for supplies. East Africa had sourced more than 65 percent of its refined petroleum products from the Middle East last year, and by April nearly a third of Kenya's gas stations had run dry, according to Matthew Tracey-Cook, a senior analyst at Platts, cited by the paper.
"When the Iran war broke out, the Dangote Refinery was a lifeline to buyers who previously depended on the Persian Gulf for oil products," Tracey-Cook said, adding that the facility also began supplying jet fuel to the Mediterranean and Europe, and became a key diesel and jet fuel source for South Africa, a country with ties to Iran that has traditionally leaned on the Middle East.
Dangote isn't the only African winner. The Port of Lomé, in Togo — West Africa's only deepwater port, built with hundreds of millions of dollars from Swiss shipping giant Mediterranean Shipping Company — has captured a growing share of the regional energy trade, the Times reports. Tankers loaded at Dangote's Lagos refinery now sail to Lomé, where cargo is transferred onto smaller vessels bound for markets across the continent.
"The Lomé port is one of the biggest winners from the impact of the disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz," analyst Cham Etienne Bama told the newspaper, describing a recent flight into the city where he photographed a harbor crowded with vessels: "It was like you're looking at the sky in the night... so many stars."
Back in Nigeria, Dangote's success hasn't quieted his critics. Nigerians had hoped the refinery would end their reliance on imported fuel and lower costs, instead, domestic fuel prices have only climbed, the Times notes. Human rights lawyer Deji Adeyanju, who says he's among the few Nigerians willing to criticize the billionaire publicly, argues that Dangote wields undue influence over the government and benefits from favorable treatment. Dangote, for his part, has long accused Nigerian regulators of restricting crude oil flows to protect their own grip on the industry — allegations regulators deny, per the paper.
None of this has slowed Dangote's ambitions. Buoyed by his windfall, he's now seeking to double his refinery's production capacity, Edwin told the Times. Earlier this month, Kenyan president William Ruto confirmed a deal with Dangote to build a $17 billion refinery in Kenya, alongside plans for a pipeline stretching across 11 African countries. "We will supply Africa," Edwin said.
