President William Ruto has positioned the Sh2 trillion Dangote East Africa Refinery as part of a broader push to transform Africa from a continent that exports raw materials into one that processes its resources and manufactures products for its own markets.
Speaking in Mokowe, Lamu County, on Wednesday during the groundbreaking ceremony of the refinery, Ruto said the project represented an investment in energy security, industrialisation and regional integration.
“This is bigger than a refinery. It is an investment in energy security, industrialisation, and regional integration,” Ruto said.
The President said the project marked a new phase in Africa’s economic development in which African capital would increasingly be used to finance projects that process the continent’s resources and create value locally.
“This is African ambition, backed by African capital, building African industry for African prosperity,” he said.
Ruto pointed to what he described as a major contradiction in Africa’s petroleum industry — the continent has substantial crude oil resources but still relies heavily on imported refined petroleum products.
According to figures cited by Ruto from Afreximbank, Africa produced about 6.8 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2024, while consuming approximately 4.5 million barrels per day of refined petroleum products. Afreximbank’s 2024 data records African crude oil production at about 6.77 million barrels per day and refined petroleum-product consumption at about 4.51 million barrels per day.
Ruto said the figures demonstrated the need for African countries to capture more value from their natural resources before they leave the continent.
“We have the resource, and we have the market. Yet too much of the value between that resource and that market is still created somewhere else.”
He said Africa must therefore increase domestic production and processing while reducing its dependence on imported manufactured goods.
“The argument is simple. We must produce more of what we consume. We must add value to more of what we produce. And we must progressively replace what we import with what we manufacture,” Ruto said.
The President linked the Lamu refinery to discussions held during the Africa We Build Summit in Nairobi in April, where African leaders, financiers and industry players discussed infrastructure as a driver of industrialisation. The summit was hosted by the Africa Finance Corporation in partnership with Kenya and the African Union Commission.
Ruto said his engagement with Dangote began with a letter inviting the Nigerian industrialist to participate in the summit and consider an East African energy and refining platform.
