A major partnership between Nigeria’s massive Dangote oil refinery and American technology company Honeywell will significantly boost the African nation’s production of chemicals used in everyday products like plastic packaging and household detergents.
The collaboration centers around Dangote’s $20 billion refinery complex and represents a strategic push to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported materials while establishing the country as a key manufacturing center across the region.
Under the agreement announced Monday, Dangote will implement Honeywell UOP’s specialized Oleflex technology to manufacture an extra 750,000 metric tons annually of propylene at its Lekki facility. This chemical serves as a crucial component in plastics found in packaging materials, household items, and various industrial products.
The refinery will simultaneously utilize additional Honeywell systems to generate 400,000 tons per year of linear alkylbenzene, commonly known as LAB, which forms an essential ingredient in detergents and cleaning solutions. When operating at full capacity, Dangote expects its LAB facility to become one of the largest such plants globally.
Neither company revealed the financial terms of their arrangement.
The $2 billion petrochemical facility at the Lekki site near Lagos sits adjacent to the primary refinery and maintains an 830,000 metric ton capacity. Operations at this plant commenced polypropylene production in March 2025, packaging the material in 25-kilogram bags for domestic distribution.
This latest agreement builds upon an existing relationship between Dangote and Honeywell spanning several years, focused on the main refinery operations. The facility currently processes 650,000 barrels daily, but Dangote intends to leverage Honeywell’s technology to increase output to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028. Company officials believe this expansion would establish it as the world’s largest refinery measured by processing volume.
