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Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote has hit a new wealth milestone with his net worth crossing the $30 billion mark, the first for an African amid ambitious plans for the expansion of his business empire.
Dangote is worth $30.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Dangote controls Dangote Industries, a closely held conglomerate.
The Lagos, Nigeria-based company owns sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cement producer, Dangote Cement, and the continent’s largest oil refinery, the Dangote Refinery.
It also has interests in sugar, salt, oil, fertilizer and packaged food.
Dangote’s net worth is up $1.5 billion in one month, largely as a result of the rise in the share price of Dangote Cement which is listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NGX).
Dangote recently outlined plans to expand the Dangote refinery from its current 650,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 1.4 million b/d, with no specified date for completion.
The funding for the project is expected to come from Middle Eastern sources, putting it on track to surpass the world’s largest 1.36 million b/d refinery in Jamnagar, India.
“At the moment we don’t want too many balls in the air, so I think that we should throw the ones we can handle,” Dangote told S&P Global in an interview, impressing the scale of the new expansion.
“We have to tighten our belts and make sure that we know what we are doing. It’s a huge, huge undertaking,” he said.
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