Dangote Group has announced a bold plan to invest over US$700 million in a sugar expansion project aimed at reducing Nigeria’s reliance on imported sugar.
The funds will be channelled into land development, machinery, infrastructure, training, and community partnerships to build a fully integrated local sugar value chain.
During the Lagos International Trade Fair, Ravindra Singhvi, CEO of Dangote Sugar Refinery, said the drive is part of the company’s backward integration strategy, which focuses on producing more raw sugar locally. To make refined sugar more accessible, he added that Dangote will roll out new packaging sizes 100 g, 250 g, 500 g, and 1 kg to appeal to households and small businesses.
Fatima Aliko Dangote, Group Executive Director of Commercial Operations, reiterated that the broader goal is to deepen Nigeria’s industrial capacity and absorb more of the value chain into the country. She emphasized that this kind of scale in manufacturing is key to creating jobs and supporting smaller local enterprises.
Representing Dangote at the event, Funmi Sanni, Sales and Marketing Director of Dangote Cement, linked the sugar expansion plan to the group’s other industrial projects, including its refining, fertilizer, and petrochemical businesses. She said the sugar initiative is one piece of a larger push to boost domestic production across several sectors.
Currently, Dangote Sugar Refinery is Nigeria’s largest sugar producer, with a refining capacity of 1.44 million metric tonnes. Under the new plan, the company hopes to significantly increase local raw sugar production to feed its refining operations and meet growing demand.
Financially, Dangote Sugar has shown strong improvement: in the first nine months of its 2025 fiscal year, its revenue rose to ₦626.24 billion, up from ₦484.42 billion in the same period the previous year. At the same time, losses narrowed dramatically from ₦184.4 billion to just ₦10.59 billion.