The full Dangote Refinery timeline — from 2013 construction to 2026's full-capacity milestone and th...

The Dangote Refinery IPO story is really two timelines: the years-long construction and ramp-up of the physical refinery, and the more recent, still-unfolding IPO process. Keeping them separate helps avoid confusion in the headlines.

The refinery project was first announced in 2013, according to industry reporting, as a privately funded Dangote Group investment.

Construction proceeded over the following decade on a site in the Lekki Free Zone, Lagos, with the project’s budget rising over time from early estimates to a figure commonly cited around $19–20 billion. In 2021, Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council approved state-owned NNPC’s acquisition of a 20% equity stake in the project.

The refinery was officially commissioned on May 22, 2023.

Full commercial operations then ramped up gradually: public reporting indicates the plant began processing crude oil in January 2024, and began producing petrol (PMS) in September 2024.

In February 2026, the company announced it had reached its full designed capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, describing it as a milestone few single-train refineries of this scale achieve.

In October 2025, ahead of that milestone, Dangote had also announced longer-term plans to expand capacity to a reported 1.4 million barrels per day.

The IPO timeline is much shorter and more recent. Through mid-2026, Aliko Dangote made public statements about intending to launch an IPO, and market chatter grew — enough that Nigeria’s SEC issued a warning in June 2026 against unauthorized parties soliciting advance subscriptions before any formal application had been filed.

That changed in late July/early August 2026, when Dangote Petroleum Refinery formally filed its IPO application with the SEC. As of this writing, the company is targeting a September 2026 listing, though the SEC has said no date has been formally approved yet.

Put together, the timeline shows a decade-long industrial build finally reaching operational maturity, followed by a compressed, still-in-progress push toward a public listing.

Investors should treat the construction and operational milestones as established fact, and the IPO milestones as a live, developing process to keep monitoring.