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(Bloomberg) — African billionaire Aliko Dangote is wealthier than ever now that his long-awaited Nigerian oil refinery is up and running. But his mood suggests a man who just built his dream house only for the roof to start leaking.
The Dangote Refinery outside Lagos is the biggest single-train oil refinery in the world and one of the most complex, capable of processing most global crude types. It has the potential to transform Nigeria’s economy by making the country self-reliant for fuel. And it’s more than doubled his net worth to $27.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He said he wouldn’t wish the experience on his worst enemy.
“I didn’t know what we were building was a monster,” Dangote, 67, said during a recent visit to New York. “The pressure was coming from different directions, people confusing us, disturbing us every day with different media stories that it will never work, it will never work, it will never work.”
Since the refinery started running in January, there have been disagreements with the government and state oil company, as well as concerns over its impact on locals and the environment. Dangote is smarting from the blowback, his tone quickly shifting from warm to bitter as he runs through the challenges.
For Dangote, who made his first billions in cement, the refinery was the most audacious undertaking of his 46-year career. Building it took 11 years and $20 billion, three-and-a-half times as long and more than twice as much as initially planned. He financed most of it himself.
Unparalleled Scale
Short in stature with neatly-trimmed graying hair, Dangote is an industrialist on an unparalleled scale. The bedrock of his empire is commodities: mainly cement but also sugar, salt and flour. His fortune is an anomaly in a country where 40% of the population lives below the national poverty line and sizable wealth is often tied to oil holdings.
Dangote’s critics call him a politically-connected monopolist, but he’s proud of his role in building Nigeria’s manufacturing sector. Before he went into business, Nigeria imported most of its cement — a literal building block of developing markets. Now it’s a net exporter of the substance. With the refinery, he saw an opportunity to do the same for the country’s oil industry.
