August 11, 2021 2 min read

This story originally appeared on Black Enterprise

The world’s richest Black man, Aliko Dangote, could add more than $2.5 billion to his net worth depending on the terms of the sale of a 20 percent share of his oil refinery.

Reuters reported last week Nigeria’s government has approved its state oil firm the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to buy a 20% share of Dangote’s oil refinery. According to Afrotech, Timipre Sylva, the junior oil minister said in a statement NNPC will pay $2.76 billion for the 20% share.

The NNPC told Reuters its move to work with private companies is an effort to safeguard the country’s energy security and the purchase would not affect plans to refurbish its own refineries. NNPC is currently  approaching banks to finance the purchase of the refinery.

The deal came together as Nigeria secures crude oil supply agreements in order to cut its foreign dependence on refined oil. Afrotech reports Nigeria is Africa’s top exporter of crude oil, but the country also exclusively imports all its refined oil, due to defunct state refineries, thus the interest in Dangote’s refinery.

Dangote, who was born in Kano, Nigeria, is worth more than $12 billion according to Forbes and is overseeing the construction of what will be one of the world’s largest oil refineries, which is expected to end the country’s dependence on foreign refined oil. Once completed, the refinery is expected to produce 650,000 barrels of refined oil per day.

Earlier this year, Nigeria approved $1.5 billion in spending on the refurbishment and modernization of the Port Harcourt oil refinery. The country has also approved the upgrades of the Warri and Kaduna refineries which will cost a combined $1.4 billion.

Dangote owns 85% of Dangote Cement, which produces 45.6 million metric tons of cement per year and has more than 10 locations throughout Africa. Dangote also has investments in sugar and salt refineries which have largely contributed to his multi-billion dollar fortune.