President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has sealed an estimated $300 million deal with Honeywell Technologies for technology, engineering services, and equipment for his planned $16 billion, 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lamu, Kenya, as he committed to delivering the project within 40 months.

The deal extends the decade-long relationship between Dangote and Honeywell, which began with the construction of the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos, and now sees the American technology company bringing its refining technology and engineering expertise to the development of the planned East African refinery.

Dangote, at the groundbreaking ceremony in Lamu, said the new facility would be built using lessons from the Lagos refinery and would combine global technology with Kenyan talent and wider African opportunities.

“Lekki proved that it can be done. So, Lamu must prove that it can be repeated,” he said.

The Lamu refinery is designed to process approximately 700,000 barrels of crude per day, generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, produce one million tonnes of polypropylene, and produce base oil.

Dangote also disclosed that the project would target opportunities in the international aviation fuel market, saying the facility would supply at least 20 per cent of jet fuel consumed by Europe and the United Kingdom.

“We are not here merely to build tanks, pipelines, processing units and jetties. We’re here to help build an industrial ecosystem, and from our experience in Nigeria, this will give birth to an industrial zone, an ecosystem of energy, petrochemicals, logistics, engineering, marine services, manufacturing, skills, technology, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and thousands of opportunities for people across the value chain,” he said.

The Honeywell agreement covers process technologies, licensing, engineering services, proprietary catalysts, equipment and digital solutions for the Lamu refinery.

The technology partnership is expected to shorten the project development schedule, with the companies saying proven engineering designs developed for the Lekki refinery would be reused for the Kenyan project. The approach is expected to cut the development timeline by nearly two years, or about 30 per cent, compared with a typical new refinery.

The arrangement also deepens Honeywell’s role in Dangote’s refining expansion. Its technology and engineering solutions are already being used at the Nigerian refinery, which is undergoing a capacity expansion to 1.4 million barrels per day.

Dangote said the speed with which the Kenyan project had moved from conception to groundbreaking demonstrated the importance of political and institutional support for large-scale African investments.

He disclosed that more than 110 pieces of equipment were already on site, while another 400 pieces were expected to arrive within 60 days.