We’ve repaid $2.4bn of $5.5bn refinery loan, says Dangote

Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the CEO of Dangote Group

We’ve repaid $2.4bn of $5.5bn refinery loan, says Dangote

The founder of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has revealed that he has paid off $2.4bn of the $5.5bn loan for his $19bn Lagos-based refinery.

The Africa’s richest man also alleged that powerful oil cartels tried to undermine his refinery project.

Speaking at the Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Nassau, The Bahamas, on Wednesday, Dangote said his 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery will act as Nigeria’s strategic reserve, as reported by This Day Newspaper.

“We borrowed the money based on our own balance sheet. I think we borrowed just over $5.5bn. But we paid also a lot of interest as we went along, because the project was delayed because of lack of land, also the sand-filling took a long time. Almost five years or so we didn’t do anything.

“We actually started in 2018. We borrowed that much. We have actually, of course, paid interest and some principal, about $2.4bn. We’ve done very well. We now have only about $2.7bn left to be paid. So we’ve done very well for a project of that magnitude,” he said.

Dangote thanked Afreximbank and Access Bank for their support, acknowledging that many had doubted the project’s success.

He stated that the vision would have failed without their backing.

Dangote further remarked that foreign banks showed little interest in supporting Africa’s development.