President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has revealed that his company secured bank loans totalling about $5.5 billion to build the Dangote refinery.
He disclosed this during the ‘AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum’ in The Bahamas, on Wednesday.
Dangote, who is Africa’s richest man, revealed that the loan was secured from domestic banks across the continent based on the company’s balance sheet, not through project financing from international lenders, saying international banks would have shut it down.
“They might have asked me for my great-grandmother’s certificate of birth which I don’t think I will be able to find it anyway.
“What we did was to borrow the money based on our own balanced sheet. At that time, Naira was very strong. We borrowed the money based on our own balanced sheet.
“We borrowed about $5.5 billion. We paid also a lot of interest as we went along because the project was delayed for almost five years. We started in 2018 eventually,” Dangote said.
He further explained that the loan, which accumulated interest because of delays in constructing the refinery, is being gradually repaid, with $2.4 billion already paid back with a balance of $2.7 billion and emphasised their impressive performance given the magnitude of the project.
