Africa's largest-ever share sale opened for subscription on September 14, 2026, when the initial public offering of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals began taking orders on the Nigerian Exchange. The offer runs until October 13, 2026, and follows formal clearance from Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission, which conveyed its approval in a letter to lead issuing house Vetiva Advisory Services Limited signed by Abdulkadir Abbas, director of the commission's securities and investment services department. The approved offer comprises 4.1 billion ordinary shares at 525 naira, about 0.40 dollars, each. Full subscription would raise approximately 2.15 trillion naira, or 1.63 billion dollars at the September 4 exchange rate of 1,322 naira to the dollar, dwarfing Nigeria's previous record IPO, MTN Nigeria's 876-million-dollar sale in 2019. ## A Refinery Worth Close to Half of Nigeria's Market At the offer price, across an enlarged 124.23 billion shares, the refinery is valued at roughly 65.2 trillion naira, about 49 billion dollars. Nigeria's entire stock market was worth around 116 billion dollars in early August, meaning the single company would enter at close to 40 percent of that total. The price sits at the bottom of an indicative range of 500 to 595 naira, a positioning that prioritizes filling the order book over maximizing valuation. The offer represents about 3.3 percent of the enlarged company, on top of roughly 6 percent sold in a private placement in July that raised 2.5 billion dollars at 3.7 times oversubscription. Aliko Dangote holds 92.3 percent of the company and would be diluted to about 89.25 percent after the offer. Speaking with CNN anchor Eleni Giokos on Quest Means Business on September 8, Dangote said the IPO is designed to give Nigerians and other Africans an opportunity to own a stake in the refinery, and that proceeds will support plans to expand capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day. ## The Plant Behind the Offer The complex occupies about 2,635 hectares at Ibeju-Lekki outside Lagos and is the largest single-train refinery in the world. It reached its 650,000 barrel-per-day nameplate capacity in February 2026 and has been tested at 700,000. Alongside the main plant sit a polypropylene facility rated at 900,000 tonnes a year, a dedicated 435-megawatt power station, and 177 storage tanks holding 4.742 billion litres. The company has also proposed an unusual arrangement for Nigerian investors: subscribing in naira while receiving dividends in dollars funded by export earnings. That structure remains a proposal until the final prospectus confirms it, since dividend policy is a board decision rather than a guarantee. ## What Could Still Go Wrong The headline 2.15-trillion-naira figure assumes full subscription, a condition rather than a result, and offers of this size in frontier markets often depend on a small group of anchor investors. The narrow free float could also flatter early trading while making the stock difficult to trade in size later. The regulatory path has not been smooth. In June 2026, the SEC ordered market operators to stop soliciting advance subscriptions, stating that no application had been filed with or approved by the commission at that time. A Lagos court order on August 31 restraining Nigeria's fuel regulator in a separate dispute with the company is a further reminder that the policy environment remains contested. The final closing date, allotment timetable and first trading day have not yet been publicly confirmed.