President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Dr Omar Touray, has hailed the Dangote Petroleum Refinery as a transformational project capable of meeting the petroleum needs of Nigeria and the wider West African region.
Touray made the remarks during a high-level visit to the 650,000 barrels-per-day facility in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos. The visit, which included top ECOWAS officials, was part of efforts to strengthen collaboration between the regional body and the private sector.
Speaking after a guided tour of the refinery and fertiliser plant, Touray described the facility as a “beacon of hope for Africa’s future” and urged greater private sector involvement in driving regional industrialisation.
“What I have seen today gives me a lot of hope, and everybody who doesn’t believe in Africa should come here. This is exactly what our continent should focus on,” Touray said, adding that the scale and sophistication of the refinery far exceeded his expectations.
Touray also commended Dangote Group’s production of Euro V standard fuels, which meet ECOWAS’s 50ppm sulphur limit—significantly higher than the quality of most imported fuels currently used across the region.
“We are still importing products below our standard when a regional company such as Dangote can meet and exceed these requirements,” he noted. “The private sector must take the lead in ECOWAS industrialisation.”
He emphasised that a strong industrial base is key to addressing the sub-region’s challenges, including poverty, unemployment and insecurity. Touray pledged the Commission’s support for facilitating regional market access for Dangote products.
President and Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, who led the delegation around the facility, said the refinery was conceived with a pan-African vision and has the capacity to supply refined petroleum products across West Africa.
“There have been claims that we don’t produce enough to meet Nigeria’s needs, let alone supply the region. But now, they are here to see the reality,” Dangote said. “This refinery is proof that we can build for ourselves, at scale and to global standards.”
He warned that continued dependence on imported fuels would hinder Africa’s development and called for increased investment in local production.
“As long as we continue importing what we can produce, we will remain underdeveloped,” he said, highlighting the drop in diesel prices that followed the commencement of operations at the refinery.
Also present during the visit were ECOWAS Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Prof. Nazifi Abdullahi Darma; ECOWAS Commissioner for Infrastructure, Energy and Digitalisation, Sédiko Douka; and other officials of the regional bloc.
