Dangote Plans Port, Power and Fertiliser Push in Tanzania
TANZANIA · BUSINESS
Key Facts
—The roadmap: Aliko Dangote and President Samia Suluhu Hassan agreed a multi-billion-dollar investment roadmap at State House in Dar es Salaam on June 29, 2026.
—The projects: Plans span a new port with a 40-kilometre concrete access road and special trade zone, a 2,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant and a urea fertiliser complex.
—Southern corridor: The package includes transport infrastructure linking Mtwara with Mbamba Bay in Tanzania’s far south.
—Already on the ground: Dangote’s roughly 500-million-dollar Mtwara cement plant produces about three million tonnes a year for home and export markets.
—Government fast-track: Samia directed Planning and Investment Minister Kitila Mkumbo to lead negotiations, and a Tanzanian delegation will travel to Nigeria to fine-tune the rollout.
—Bigger picture: Africa’s richest man is turning post-refinery cash flow into a pan-African industrial footprint, with Tanzania picked for the next wave.
Aliko Dangote is taking his industrial empire deeper into East Africa: the Dangote Tanzania roadmap agreed with President Samia Suluhu Hassan on June 29 spans a new port, a 2,000-megawatt power plant and a urea fertiliser complex.
What Dangote and Tanzania agreed
The Nigerian billionaire met President Samia Suluhu Hassan at State House in Dar es Salaam on June 29 and laid out a project pipeline far broader than the cement business that has anchored his presence in the country. The two sides agreed a roadmap for investments across energy, fertiliser and transport infrastructure.
The list is concrete: development of a new port, a 40-kilometre concrete access road to serve it, a special trade zone, a proposed 2,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant and a urea fertiliser plant. It also includes transport links connecting Mtwara with Mbamba Bay in southern Tanzania.
No total price tag has been disclosed, and the projects remain proposals until technical talks conclude. Tanzanian officials and the company both describe the push as multi-billion-dollar in scale.
For Dar es Salaam, the meeting doubled as a signal to other investors that Tanzania can land serious private capital. The government has courted foreign business steadily since President Samia took office in 2021.
Why Mtwara is the anchor
Dangote knows southern Tanzania well. His group already operates a cement plant in Mtwara built for about 500 million dollars, with capacity of roughly three million tonnes a year serving Tanzania and its neighbours.
The new package would wrap that plant in the infrastructure it has long lacked: its own port capacity, reliable power and a corridor running inland toward Mbamba Bay on Lake Nyasa. For Tanzania, that promises to pull the underdeveloped south into the trade economy.
A urea complex would add fertiliser to the mix, a product East African farmers still import in bulk. Gas-rich Tanzania has courted fertiliser investors for years with limited success.
Dangote already operates one of the world’s largest urea plants outside Lagos, with cargoes sailing to Brazil, India and the United States. Tanzania would extend that fertiliser business to the Indian Ocean coast.
From cement maker to a Dangote Tanzania platform
The move fits a pattern. Since his Lagos refinery began producing, Dangote has pushed outward, weighing projects from fuel storage to fertiliser across the continent, and Tanzania now hosts the most detailed of those plans, as set out in the group’s own statement.
President Samia moved quickly, directing Planning and Investment Minister Kitila Mkumbo to coordinate negotiations and aligning ministries behind the talks. A Tanzanian delegation is expected in Nigeria soon to map out the rollout.
The attraction for Tanzania is African private capital on a scale usually associated with Chinese state lenders. For Dangote, it is a second home market in a region growing faster than most of the world.
East Africa gives the bet room to run. The region is the continent’s fastest-growing, and Tanzania sits on its seaboard with gas, coal and farmland concentrated in the very south the roadmap targets.
What to watch next
The proposals must survive feasibility studies, financing and Tanzania’s legal and policy review, which the president explicitly attached to the talks. Big-ticket African infrastructure often shrinks between handshake and groundbreaking.
The coal-fired power plant may prove the most contested element, as global lenders have largely stopped financing coal. How it would be funded, and by whom, remains open.
None of that appears to deter a group that has made a habit of building where others hesitate. The Mtwara cement plant gave it a decade of local operating experience to draw on.
Still, the direction is clear. East Africa’s fastest-growing corridor is drawing the continent’s biggest industrialist, and Tanzania intends to hold the door open.
Frequently asked questions
What did Dangote announce in Tanzania?
After meeting President Samia Suluhu Hassan on June 29, 2026, Aliko Dangote laid out plans for a new port with a 40-kilometre access road and trade zone, a 2,000-megawatt power plant, a urea fertiliser complex and a Mtwara–Mbamba Bay transport link.
How big is Dangote’s existing Tanzania operation?
Dangote Industries already runs a cement plant in Mtwara built for about 500 million dollars, producing roughly three million tonnes a year for Tanzania and neighbouring markets.
What happens next with the Dangote Tanzania projects?
President Samia directed Planning and Investment Minister Kitila Mkumbo to coordinate technical negotiations, and a Tanzanian delegation is expected in Nigeria to map out how the projects will roll out. No total investment figure has been disclosed.
Why does the push matter for East Africa?
It would bring African private capital, rather than foreign state lending, into ports, power and fertiliser, deepening Tanzania’s southern corridor and Dangote’s pan-African footprint beyond Nigeria.
Connected Coverage
Dangote’s expanding empire is a running Rio Times story: see his claim that the Lagos refinery alone is worth 40 billion dollars and our look at East Africa’s flirtation with a Dangote-style refinery, part of the wider canvas of Africa: The New Scramble.
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