Dangote Refinery IPO Goes On-Chain: How Solana and Base Opened Africa's Biggest Listing

Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE opened its initial public offering on September 14, 2026 at ₦525 per share, selling 4.1 billion new ordinary shares for roughly 3.3% of enlarged share capital and targeting ₦2.1525 trillion gross, with subscription closing October 13 and NGX Main Board listing expected around November. Two on-chain routes went live the same day, both running on GetEquity's infrastructure. NectarFi on Solana takes stablecoin deposits at a minimum of ₦10,000 or the USD equivalent and converts them into conventional IPO subscriptions settled through the Nigerian Exchange, leaving the equity untokenized. The Base deployment quotes DPRI as a token paid for in cNGN at 1 DPRI to 525.00 cNGN, with Buy and Sell functions and prices set by a pool smart contract, announced by Base creator Jesse Pollak to. GetEquity states on its own site that it is a technology provider, is not a registered broker-dealer, investment adviser or financial advisor, is not registered with any regulatory agency or body, and does not custody digital securities or digital assets, with responsibility for offerings sitting with the applicable issuer. At ₦525 the offer implies an enterprise value near $49 billion and a raise around $1.63 billion, roughly 41% of Nigeria's $118.66 billion equity market.

 

 

Africa's largest share sale opened for subscription on September 14, and two of the roughly eighteen channels taking applications accept digital assets. Both run on infrastructure built by GetEquity, a Lagos company from the Techstars 2023 cohort headquartered in Lekki, a few kilometres from the refinery itself. NectarFi, built on Solana, turns stablecoin deposits into conventional IPO subscriptions that settle through the Nigerian Exchange. The Base deployment, which Jesse Pollak announced on the day the offer opened, quotes DPRI as a token paid for in cNGN, the naira-pegged stablecoin, with prices coming from a pool smart contract and both Buy and Sell functions available. One is a payment rail into a traditional offering. The other puts a tradeable token in a wallet. This article covers the offer terms, how the two routes differ, the currency question underneath both, what GetEquity says about its own regulatory position,

 

 

 

Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE, owner of the 700,000 barrel per day refinery at Lekki in Lagos, is selling up to 4.1 billion new ordinary shares at a fixed ₦525, with every investor paying the same price. The offer covers approximately 3.3% of enlarged share capital and raises ₦2,152,500,000,000 gross if fully subscribed, or roughly ₦2.11 trillion after costs.

Retail investors apply for a minimum of 10 shares at ₦5,250, in multiples of ten above that, while qualified institutional investors start at 50,000 shares. The Securities and Exchange Commission approved the offer in early September, the prospectus was published on September 7, subscription runs from September 14 to October 13, and allotment is indicatively expected around November 2026.

The scale is unusual for any market; At ₦525 the 4.1 billion shares imply an enterprise value near $49 billion and a target raise around $1.63 billion, equal to roughly 41% of the entire capitalisation of Nigeria's equity market at $118.66 billion. The refinery began operations in February 2024, was built for 650,000 barrels per day and was rerated to 700,000 in July 2026. Conventional channels ask for a Bank Verification Number, valid identification, a bank account and a CSCS number. The SEC has warned separately against unauthorised operators soliciting money for Dangote shares, so checking any channel against the official prospectus list is a sensible precaution.

 

 

 

NectarFi went live on September 14, taking stablecoin deposits from a minimum of ₦10,000 or the USD equivalent, around $7.50, and converting them into IPO subscriptions. GetEquity, whose infrastructure sits underneath, reported more than 22,000 users and $2 billion in processed transactions at Solana Summit Nigeria. Those subscriptions pass into the Nigerian Exchange's formal settlement system, and no token represents the shares at any stage, because the equity is issued and settled through conventional NGX infrastructure while the Solana side carries the payment alone.

The Base route hands the user an actual token. GetEquity interface shows a Buy and Sell tabs where paying cNGN returns DPRI, quoted at 1 DPRI to 525.00 cNGN, alongside a line stating that prices are set by the pool's smart contract and that a network fee applies to each transaction. A pool contract setting the price means the quoted 525.00 cNGN moves with liquidity and order flow, while every applicant going through a bank or broker pays a fixed ₦525. The Sell button lets a holder exit during the subscription window, months before the November NGX listing, at a point when conventional applicants have money locked until allotment. Paying in cNGN also removes the exchange rate risk a dollar stablecoin would carry into a naira-priced offer.

 

The offer is priced in naira. An investor paying with dollar stablecoins carries the naira rate between depositing funds and converting them, so the rate at conversion decides how many shares the money buys. In a currency that has depreciated steadily, that gap has cost real money. cNGN closes that gap; as a compliant naira-pegged stablecoin, it lets a subscriber lock ₦525 directly, so the amount sent through the contract matches the domestic price of the stock. The argument for local-currency stablecoins has circulated for years without a flagship use case, and this is one, applied to a live offering at scale. The same logic runs against the Solana route, where a minimum quoted in USD equivalent points toward dollar-denominated stablecoins. Anyone subscribing that way carries naira exposure that a cNGN subscriber avoids.

 

The refinery spent two years losing money and then turned sharply profitable six months before asking the public for capital. Commercial operations began in January 2024 at the $20 billion facility, and the first two years produced losses of roughly $1.51 billion in 2024 and $475.8 million in 2025, around $1.99 billion combined. The first half of 2026 reversed that. Revenue reached ₦19.47 trillion, about $13.91 billion, exceeding the ₦18.74 trillion the refinery booked across all of 2025. Profit after tax came in at ₦2.55 trillion, roughly $1.82 billion, with EBITDA of $2.60 billion and an EBITDA margin of 18.7%. Gross profit rose to ₦3.43 trillion from ₦343.4 billion for the whole of 2025.

Two operational numbers explain the swing; Average utilisation reached 83.6% during the half, and the gross refining margin climbed to $24.50 per barrel from $13.70 in 2025 and $10.70 in 2024. The quarterly path matters because the margin hit $33.70 a barrel in the first quarter before moderating in the second. Aliko Dangote has said the refinery profited from the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine while arguing the investment remains sustainable over the long term.

The balance sheet carries ₦29.08 trillion in total assets against $5.67 billion of debt as of June 30, all of it secured, down from $6.24 billion at the end of 2025. The prospectus lists 14 legal cases as of August 26, nine of them significant, covering unpaid debts and contract disputes with claims totalling ₦4.08 billion and $216.12 million. Chief executive David Bird has said the refinery is running at its full 700,000 barrels per day, a capacity it only reached in June after a re-rating from the original 650,000 design. The expansion programme would spend $14.3 billion to double throughput to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2029, and Dangote has said ADNOC, the UAE state oil company, is among parties interested in investing, citing non-disclosure agreements when asked for detail.

 

Nigerian analysts have been considerably more cautious on ₦525 than the subscription enthusiasm suggests. The ramp-up problem comes first. Gross margin moved from 1.9% in 2025 to 17.9% in the first half of 2026, and higher utilisation spreads fixed costs across greater output, which flatters margin in a way that cannot repeat once the plant is running full. Analysts Osagiede and Njoku framed the question as whether the refinery can sustain a structurally higher margin and utilisation profile than it achieved during ramp-up, not whether it can reproduce a $33.70 first-quarter margin.

Tax is the second issue; The effective rate in the first half was 13.6%, and the prospectus indicates domestic-market profits may become fully taxable from January 2028, with full free-zone exemption requiring domestic revenue to stay below 25%. A business positioned to supply Nigerian fuel demand sits awkwardly against a threshold that rewards exporting.

The valuation arithmetic is where the caution becomes real; A Businessday analysis applying mid-cycle refining margins of $15 to $18 a barrel, a six to seven times exit multiple and a 12% to 15% discount rate produced a fair value range of ₦176 to ₦324 a share, well beneath the ₦525 offer price. Reaching ₦525 on that model requires earnings to stay materially above a normalised industry cycle.

The private placement provides a second reference point. A $2.5 billion sale of a 6% stake completed across June and July implied an equity value near $41.7 billion, roughly ₦473 a share at prevailing rates. Institutions buying weeks before the public offer paid around 11% less than retail subscribers are being asked to pay now.

Against that, the expansion case is real. Doubling capacity would cut enterprise value per barrel per day to about $35,154, though it needs a further $12.8 billion and carries execution, financing and market risk. Buyers at ₦525 are paying today for capacity and earnings that arrive in 2029.

CardinalStone has published a 12-month target of ₦688.09, implying 31.1% capital appreciation plus an expected dividend yield near 8.5%, for a projected total return around 39.6%. CardinalStone is a joint issuing house on the offer, while stating its analysts' views are independently determined.

If 4.1 billion shares represent roughly 3.3% of enlarged share capital, the company has about 124.2 billion shares outstanding, which at ₦525 gives a market capitalisation near ₦65.2 trillion, or about $46.6 billion at ₦1,400 to the dollar. Annualising first-half profit after tax of ₦2.55 trillion produces ₦5.10 trillion, putting the shares on roughly 12.8 times annualised earnings, or 25.6 times the half-year figure alone. Annualising first-half EBITDA of $2.60 billion gives $5.20 billion against a reported enterprise value near $49 billion, or about 9.4 times. That same enterprise value across 700,000 barrels per day works out near $70,000 per barrel of daily capacity, which halves to the $35,154 Businessday cites once the expansion delivers 1.4 million barrels per day.

 

The offer carries a greenshoe option letting the company sell up to 30% more than the initial 4.1 billion shares if demand exceeds the book, which affects how allotments land and how much stock hits the market at listing.

Anyone using the on-chain routes takes on counterparty considerations that a bank or broker application does not. GetEquity states on its own website that it operates as a technology provider, that it is not a registered broker-dealer, investment adviser or financial advisor, that it is not registered with any regulatory agency or body, and that it does not custody digital securities or digital assets, with offerings being the responsibility of the applicable issuer. Its developer documentation describes a managed integration under which GetEquity holds an account for each of an intermediary's users while the intermediary acts on their behalf, which places the end investor a step removed from the register. On dividends, the prospectus indicates the company intends to declare in US dollars, subject to regulation and its financing covenants, with the option to pay in dollars or naira. Nothing has been declared. A reported Retail Investor Incentive Programme offering up to two bonus shares for holders keeping allotments 12 and 24 months has been described as proposed.

The refinery's own history is the clearest guide to what this investment is. It lost about $1.99 billion over two years, then earned $1.82 billion in six months once utilisation reached 83.6% and refining margins doubled. Margins on that scale respond to global crude spreads, product demand and geopolitical disruption, none of which the company controls.

 

It is the initial public offering of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE, owner of the 700,000 barrel per day refinery at Lekki in Lagos, priced at a fixed ₦525 per share. The company is selling 4.1 billion new ordinary shares, roughly 3.3% of enlarged share capital, targeting ₦2.1525 trillion gross, with a greenshoe option to sell up to 30% more if demand exceeds the book. Subscription runs from September 14 to October 13, 2026

Now, after two years of losses. It lost roughly $1.51 billion in 2024 and $475.8 million in 2025, then recorded profit after tax of ₦2.55 trillion, about $1.82 billion, in the first half of 2026. Revenue for that half reached ₦19.47 trillion, exceeding the ₦18.74 trillion booked across all of 2025, with EBITDA of $2.60 billion.

Utilisation and margins. Average utilisation reached 83.6% in the first half, and the gross refining margin rose to $24.50 a barrel from $13.70 in 2025 and $10.70 in 2024. The margin peaked at $33.70 in the first quarter before moderating in the second, and Aliko Dangote has said the refinery profited from conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Analysts disagree. A Businessday analysis using mid-cycle refining margins of $15 to $18 a barrel, a six to seven times exit multiple and a 12% to 15% discount rate produced a fair value range of ₦176 to ₦324. The June and July private placement, which sold a 6% stake for $2.5 billion, implied roughly ₦473 a share. CardinalStone, a joint issuing house on the offer, has published a 12-month target of ₦688.09.

Refining margins respond to global crude spreads, product demand and geopolitical disruption, none of which the company controls, and the ramp-up effect that lifted margins cannot repeat. The effective tax rate was 13.6% in the first half, with domestic-market profits possibly fully taxable from January 2028. Debt stood at $5.67 billion at June 30, the prospectus lists 14 legal cases, and the $14.3 billion expansion to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2029 carries execution and financing risk.