Aliko Dangote has announced plans to take his fertiliser business public in 2028, projecting that the company will become the world’s largest fertiliser producer, following the ongoing initial public offering (IPO) of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.

Dangote, President and Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), disclosed this during an interview with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua at the Qatar Economic Forum UNGA Special Edition in New York on Sunday, September 20, 2026.

“Oh yes, I mean, we will IPO it. It will be the biggest fertiliser company on Earth. Yes, it will be 2028,” Dangote said when asked about the timeline for listing the fertiliser business.

Pressed further on the date, he confirmed: “Yes, it will be here in 2028”.

Dangote Fertiliser currently operates a $2.5 billion plant in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, with an annual urea production capacity of about three million tonnes. The group plans to expand production to about 12 million tonnes annually by 2028, including expansion of its Nigerian operations and a proposed plant in Ethiopia.

Dangote said the expansion would enable the business to supply more than 40% of Africa’s fertiliser demand. The group is also developing potash and phosphate mines and plans to add 2.2 million tonnes of diammonium phosphate (DAP) production.

“We are now going from 3 million tons to 12 million tons of urea. We are opening up potash mines. We are opening up phosphate mines, and we are also doing 2.2 million tons of DAP,” Dangote said.

Dangote said the expansion was driven partly by the disruption to global fertiliser supplies following the Russia-Ukraine war and Africa’s dependence on imported fertiliser.

He recalled that at the beginning of the crisis, the African Union sent its then chairman, Senegalese President Macky Sall, to seek assistance because African countries were facing fertiliser shortages.

“I said in four years, Africa will not go and beg anybody for fertilizer,” Dangote said. He added that the group is investing between $46 billion and $50 billion across Africa, arguing that the continent’s growing population provides sufficient demand for large-scale industrial investments.

“Africa is not going to ask for aid anymore. We will now go there and develop our continent,” he said.

Dangote’s announcement came as the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s IPO continues to attract strong interest from Nigerian retail investors. The share offer, marketed as the “people’s IPO,” is offering 4.1 billion shares at ₦525 each to raise about ₦2.15 trillion, or $1.63 billion, and closes on October 13.

Demand from retail investors knocked investment apps offline on the first day, and new shareholders have flooded social media with jokes casting themselves as co-owners and executives of the refinery. Dangote acknowledged the trend: “You must have seen that they’ve been calling me now for a board meeting”.

Dangote said the group has historically built everything on its own without partners and is now looking for large numbers of people to become partners.

“We have actually everything we do by ourselves. We don’t have partners. But that’s why we are now looking for all these massive number of people to now become our partners,” he said.

Three Dangote companies already trade on the Nigerian Exchange: Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar Refinery and NASCON Allied Industries. The refinery and the fertiliser business would take the total to five publicly listed entities.

Dangote, Africa’s richest person with a net worth of $51.3 billion according to Forbes, has also disclosed that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange after completing an expansion that will double its crude-processing capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by the first quarter of 2029.