Africa’s largest ever share sale opens to the public on Monday, 14 September 2026, when Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE begins accepting subscriptions for 4.1 billion ordinary shares priced at N525 each, a transaction that could raise about N2.15 trillion, or roughly 1.6 billion dollars, if fully taken up. The offer closes on 13 October, with a listing on the Nigerian Exchange expected in November.
Speaking in Hausa in an interview with the broadcaster Abis Fulani, the company’s president, Aliko Dangote, said retail investors would be given priority in the allocation of shares over large institutions, and suggested the stock, offered at N525, could climb to N10,000 over time. Using his own illustration, he said an investment of N5 million at the offer price would be worth more than N50 million if the share reached that level. He also said shareholders would be able to receive dividends in either naira or dollars, describing the dollar option as a shield against currency depreciation for Nigerians with obligations abroad such as school fees, and recalled the naira’s slide from about N400 to about N1,800 to the dollar as the kind of shock the arrangement was meant to soften.
Those are projections, not guarantees. A share price target of N10,000 represents a rise of more than 1,800 per cent from the offer price, and no listed equity carries an assured path to any future value. What is documented is the structure of the offer itself. The minimum subscription is 10 shares, costing N5,250, with applications in multiples of 10, a threshold the company has said is designed to draw in ordinary earners. At the signing ceremony at Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos on Monday, 7 September, Dangote described it as an offer for the people with no restriction on who could own shares. FirstCap, one of the transaction parties, has said the offer is targeting about 10 million retail investors. Vetiva Advisory Services is coordinating the capital raise.
The pricing sets a large valuation. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which approved the offer, also registered the company’s existing 120.13 billion ordinary shares. At N525 across an enlarged base of about 124.23 billion shares after the offer, the refinery is valued at roughly N65 trillion, in the region of 47 to 49 billion dollars depending on the exchange rate applied. That places it above the roughly 40 billion dollar valuation implied when the company raised about 2.5 billion dollars through a private placement earlier in 2026, though the base offer represents only about 3.3 per cent of the enlarged company, meaning Dangote retains overwhelming control. His stake is reported to move from about 92.3 per cent to about 89.25 per cent after the sale.
The promise of retail priority sits alongside commitments already made to larger players. According to the prospectus, Pan-African Refinery Investment SPV has committed to subscribe for up to the naira equivalent of 400 million dollars, about 1.039 billion shares, or roughly a quarter of the offer, subject to allotment. The offer also carries an overallotment, or greenshoe, provision allowing up to 30 per cent additional shares to be issued if demand exceeds supply, subject to SEC approval. How much stock is ultimately left for the smallest applicants after such commitments will depend on final allotment, which the company has not yet published.
What the money is for is a matter of record. The prospectus ties the raise to an expansion programme estimated at about 14.27 billion dollars, put at around N19.46 trillion at the prospectus rate of N1,364 to the dollar, intended to lift refining capacity from 700,000 barrels a day to 1.4 million by 2029. Net proceeds of about N2.11 trillion would fund only part of that, covering refinery equipment, utilities, infrastructure and construction. The refinery, built at a reported cost of about 20 billion dollars in the Lekki Free Zone, was inaugurated in 2023 and this is its first public offer.
The offer arrives at a moment when the refinery’s output has become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply and to the politics of petrol pricing. Since fuel subsidy was removed in May 2023, pump prices have been shaped by landing costs, the exchange rate and competition from Dangote, whose gantry price is the benchmark most depots track. The National Bureau of Statistics put the average retail petrol price at N1,596.25 a litre in May 2026, its most recently published monthly figure, up 55.31 per cent from a year earlier. Private trackers recorded national averages nearer N1,200 to N1,300 in early September, after the refinery moved its gantry price to N1,185 a litre in August. A refinery whose pricing decisions move the national pump price is now inviting the same consumers to become part owners.
Currency context matters to the dividend pledge. Central Bank of Nigeria data put the official rate at about N1,322 to N1,329 to the dollar in the second week of September 2026, with the parallel market between about N1,385 and N1,410. The naira had firmed to a two-year high at the official window in early September, but remains far weaker than the levels Dangote referenced from years past, which is part of why a dollar denominated dividend carries the appeal he described.
For the wider market, the listing would be transformative. The refinery is expected to become the largest company on the Nigerian Exchange by market value once it lists, reshaping the composition of an equity market where Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar and NASCON already sit. Three of the group’s companies are already listed in Lagos.
The scale of the ambition is not in doubt, and the low entry point genuinely opens the door to first time investors, for whom the prospectus makes provision through a Registrar Identification Number where standard clearing details are absent. What potential subscribers cannot know in advance is how a single share will perform after listing, how much of the offer will remain for small applicants once institutional commitments and any greenshoe are settled, and whether the expansion that the raise partly funds will proceed on the 2029 timetable set out in the prospectus. Those answers will come with the close of the offer on 13 October, the allotment that follows, and trading on the exchange from November.