TURKANA – President William Ruto has revealed that Kenya is in discussions with Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote over a possible crude oil pipeline from Turkana to Lamu, potentially opening a new route for the commercialisation of the county’s long-awaited oil resources.
Ruto said the proposed pipeline is being considered as part of plans to establish a major oil refinery in Lamu, with the construction project expected to be officially launched later this month. Speaking at Kisumu State Lodge on Monday, September 14, 2026, President Ruto linked the refinery project to efforts to unlock crude oil reserves in Turkana that have remained largely undeveloped for more than a decade.
“As part of that project of refinery in Lamu, we are discussing with Dangote a construction of a crude oil pipeline to Turkana for us to be able to unlock the oil that we have in Turkana,” Ruto said. The President announced that the Lamu refinery project is scheduled for launch on September 30, 2026, saying other regional heads of state are expected to attend the event.
The proposed refinery is planned within the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) special economic zone and is expected to have a refining capacity of approximately 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. If realised at that capacity, the facility would be one of the largest refineries on the continent and would significantly surpass Kenya’s former Mombasa refinery, which ceased crude oil refining operations years ago.
Dangote’s refinery in Nigeria, which is currently rated at 650,000 barrels per day, provides a regional comparison for the scale of the proposed Lamu facility. Despite the significance of Ruto’s announcement, the proposed Turkana pipeline remains at the discussion stage.
There is currently no publicly released construction contract, financing agreement, detailed route, pipeline length, diameter or construction timetable for a crude oil line connecting the South Lokichar oil fields to Lamu. The President also did not announce the cancellation of other transport options previously considered for Turkana crude.
In March, the Ministry of Energy publicly favoured the development of a metre-gauge railway linking Rongai to the South Lokichar oil fields, rather than constructing a dedicated crude oil pipeline to Lamu. The two proposals now appear to exist side by side, with the latest talks introducing a possible pipeline option without formally replacing the railway plan.
A crude oil pipeline from Lokichar to Lamu has been proposed before under the wider LAPSSET concept but was never constructed. The development of a new proposal would therefore represent a renewed attempt to establish a direct evacuation route for Turkana crude to the coast.
Turkana’s South Lokichar Basin has been at the centre of Kenya’s oil ambitions since commercially significant discoveries were announced in 2012.
The discoveries were expected to transform Kenya into an oil-producing and exporting country, but commercial development has faced years of delays linked to financing, infrastructure, taxation, commercial agreements and disagreements over how the crude should be transported.
The government is now targeting first commercial oil production by the end of 2026, with initial output previously projected at around 20,000 barrels per day. That initial production level would, however, be far below the proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day capacity of the Lamu refinery.
This means the refinery would require crude from additional sources if it is to operate anywhere close to its full capacity. The question of feedstock remains one of the major issues surrounding the proposed Lamu refinery. Kenya’s South Lokichar crude alone would not be sufficient to supply a refinery of 700,000 barrels per day, particularly during the early years of production.
Government officials have previously discussed the possibility of sourcing crude from across the region, including Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. However, Uganda’s crude oil is already committed to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is being developed to transport Ugandan crude to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
South Sudan’s oil industry has also faced production and infrastructure challenges, making the availability of regional crude for a Lamu refinery an issue that would require separate commercial agreements. The proposed Turkana pipeline could therefore become an important component of Kenya’s strategy to establish a domestic refining industry while providing an additional outlet for South Lokichar crude.
Dangote has emerged as a central figure in the new refinery proposal. On the same day President Ruto made the remarks in Kisumu, Dangote was speaking in Lagos during the opening of the initial public offering of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals. He indicated that work on the Kenyan refinery could begin by the end of September, with construction expected to take approximately three years.
Previous briefings have also indicated that Dangote has offered East African countries a combined 30 percent equity stake in the refinery project, with Kenya previously linked to a proposed 10 percent share.
Those figures, however, come from earlier discussions and have not been presented as a new, signed agreement alongside President Ruto’s latest announcement. Cost estimates circulating around the project have placed the investment at between approximately 15 and 17 billion US dollars, equivalent to roughly 1.9 to 2.2 trillion Kenyan shillings, depending on exchange rates.
The proposed refinery also raises questions about whether the supporting infrastructure at Lamu is ready for a facility of such scale. Lamu Port is a key component of the LAPSSET corridor, and long-term plans have included crude oil storage facilities and berths capable of handling large tankers. However, the port does not currently have operational crude storage and marine oil infrastructure on the scale that would be required to support a 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery.
Developing the refinery would therefore require substantial investment not only in the processing plant but also in storage, pipelines, marine facilities and other supporting infrastructure.
For Turkana, the renewed pipeline conversation comes at a critical time. The county has waited for more than a decade to see its oil resources translated into sustained commercial production and local economic benefits. A pipeline connecting South Lokichar to Lamu could provide a direct evacuation route for crude and potentially reduce some of the logistical challenges associated with moving oil from the remote oil fields.
It could also position Turkana more firmly within the wider LAPSSET economic corridor, linking the county’s petroleum resources to Kenya’s coastal infrastructure.But significant questions remain unanswered. The President has not provided details on the proposed pipeline’s route, cost, financing structure or construction timeline.
It is also unclear whether the pipeline would be designed exclusively for Turkana crude or form part of a wider regional crude transportation network. For now, the government continues to pursue the commercialisation of South Lokichar while exploring different options for transporting the crude.
