Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Friday, February 21st. Today on Forbes, Africa's richest man

doubled his fortune on a massive and risky $23 billion bet. Alico Dangote takes a deep breath

before reflecting on the odyssey of building Africa's largest oil and gas

refinery. Speaking with Forbes via video conference from an office space at the refinery,

he says, quote, this is a very, very big relief. It is actually removing something off my chest,

because nobody ever gave us the chance to prove this through. After 11 years, $23 billion in investment,

and innumerable headaches, the Dengote Refinery finally began operating last year. Located on a

sprawling 6200-acre campus in Nigeria's Lecky Free Zone, about an hour outside Lagos, the refinery processed around

350,000 barrels of crude per day in the second half of 2024. In January, it processed 500,000

barrels per day. At full capacity, which is expected next month, a whopping 650,000 barrels per day,

the Dengote Refinery will be the seventh largest refinery in the world by production,

and the biggest in Africa.

Its adjacent petrochemical complex has an annual production capacity of 3 million metric tons of urea,

making it Africa's largest fertilizer producer.

Dengote's refinery is already impacting global energy markets. Imports of gasoline into Nigeria

are on pace for an eight-year low, affecting European refiners that traditionally sold to Nigeria,

according to energy intelligence firm, Vortexa.

And thanks to the refinery, Nigeria has become a net exporter of jet fuel, NAFTA, which

is a solvent used in varnishes, laundry soaps, and cleaning fluids, and fuel oil.

This according to S&P Global.

With his project coming to fruition, Dengote is now worth an estimated $23.8 billion, almost double

what he was worth last year.

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