Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery has signed an agreement with U.S. industrial group Honeywell to expand its petrochemicals production, aiming to boost output of plastics and detergent inputs and reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imports.
The deal will see Dangote deploy Honeywell UOP’s Oleflex technology at its Lekki integrated refinery complex to produce an additional 750,000 metric tons of propylene annually. Propylene is a key feedstock used in manufacturing plastics for packaging, consumer goods and industrial applications.
The companies said the partnership also includes technology for the production of 400,000 tons per year of linear alkylbenzene (LAB), a major ingredient in detergents and cleaning products. Once fully operational, the LAB facility is expected to rank among the largest globally, although financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The expansion marks a further step in Dangote’s strategy to build an integrated petrochemicals ecosystem around its $20 billion refinery complex, located in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos. The facility is already Africa’s largest refinery and is designed to reduce Nigeria’s long-standing dependence on imported refined petroleum products and petrochemical inputs.
Dangote said the new investment will deepen local industrial capacity and strengthen Nigeria’s position as a regional manufacturing hub, particularly for consumer goods and packaging industries that currently rely heavily on imported materials.
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The refinery’s petrochemicals arm has been expanding rapidly since it began operations. A $2 billion petrochemical plant within the same complex started producing polypropylene in 2025, supplying the domestic market in 25kg bags and marking an early step toward full-scale plastics production.
Propylene and polypropylene are widely used in packaging, textiles, automotive components and household goods, sectors that Nigeria has historically depended on imports to supply. LAB, meanwhile, is a critical component in detergents and cleaning products, another segment dominated by foreign manufacturers in the local market.
Dangote and Honeywell have worked together for years on the development of the refinery project. Honeywell has provided process technologies and engineering support for the facility, which currently has a refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day.
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Under Dangote’s long-term expansion plan, the refinery is expected to more than double its capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028. If achieved, this would make it the world’s largest refinery by throughput, according to company projections.
The latest petrochemicals expansion is part of a broader push by Dangote Industries to create an end-to-end industrial value chain, spanning crude refining, fuels, fertilizers and petrochemical derivatives. The strategy is aimed at capturing more value domestically while reducing Nigeria’s reliance on imported industrial inputs.
Analysts say the expansion could have significant implications for West Africa’s manufacturing landscape, particularly if local supply chains for plastics and detergents become more competitive on price and availability.
However, the scale of the investment also underscores the challenges of executing large industrial projects in the region, including infrastructure constraints, energy reliability and logistics costs.
Despite these challenges, Dangote Group continues to position the Lekki complex as a cornerstone of Nigeria’s industrial diversification strategy, with petrochemicals expected to play an increasingly central role alongside fuel production in the coming years.
