President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Saturday held high-level talks in Dar es Salaam with Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote as Tanzania seeks to position itself at the center of a proposed $17 billion East African oil refinery project.
The meeting at State House, Ikulu, brought together President Samia and executives from the Dangote Group amid growing regional competition over the location of the mega refinery, which is expected to process up to 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
In a statement released after the meeting, President Samia described Dangote as “one of the largest investors in Tanzania,” highlighting the economic contribution of Dangote Cement in Mtwara through industrial production, employment creation and the growth of supporting sectors.
“I met and held talks with the Founder and Owner of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, together with his delegation,” President Samia said in the statement issued from Ikulu in Dar es Salaam.
The talks also focused on plans for a multi-billion-dollar regional refinery intended to reduce Africa’s dependence on imported petroleum products and shield regional economies from global fuel supply shocks.
According to details from the discussions, the proposed refinery would be structured as a regional investment project, allowing East African countries to participate through share ownership.
Dangote reportedly told President Samia that the initiative would help drive Africa toward petroleum self-sufficiency while stabilizing supply and prices across the region.
“The initiative will ensure Africa’s oil and petroleum self-sufficiency, reduce external dependence and protect against price fluctuations and supply disruptions,” Dangote said during the talks, according to the Tanzanian presidency.
President Samia also invited the Dangote Group to expand its investments into fertilizer production, noting that Tanzania’s domestic demand for fertilizer continues to outpace local manufacturing capacity.
The meeting comes days after reports emerged that Dangote was considering Kenya’s port city of Mombasa instead of Tanzania’s Tanga port as the preferred location for the refinery project.
In interviews cited by Reuters and the Financial Times, Dangote said Mombasa offered a deeper port and a larger fuel market.
Earlier regional discussions had pointed to Tanzania’s Tanga port as the likely host of the refinery under a broader East African partnership involving Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The latest engagement between President Samia and Dangote is being viewed as a major diplomatic and economic effort by Tanzania to keep the refinery proposal within its borders while strengthening ties with Africa’s richest industrialist.
Dangote’s refinery ambitions in East Africa follow the success of his multi-billion-dollar refinery in Nigeria, which has become one of the continent’s most significant industrial projects and is expected to transform fuel supply chains across Africa.