Why naira may soon exchange below N1,000 per dollar – Otedola

Billionaire investor, Femi Otedola,  has projected that the naira may appreciate to below ₦1,000 against the US dollar before the end of 2026, once the Dangote Petroleum Refinery operates at its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day.

Otedola made the statement on Thursday in a post on X, where he congratulated his longtime associate and industrialist, Aliko Dangote, on the achievement.

The naira, which has recorded gains in recent weeks, traded at about ₦1,354 to the dollar at the official foreign exchange window on Thursday and between ₦1,430 and ₦1,440 on the parallel market — its strongest performance in over two years — according to market sources.

In his post, Otedola described the refinery’s full production capacity as “transformational for Nigeria and Africa,” noting that its ability to supply up to 75 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit daily would reshape the nation’s energy landscape and help conserve foreign exchange.

“With domestic refining now firmly underway after decades of reliance on imports, pressure on the foreign exchange market should ease significantly.

“I am optimistic that the naira will strengthen meaningfully, and trading below ₦1,000/$1 before year-end is increasingly within reach,” he said.

He added that beyond the current output, Dangote was embarking on an additional $12 billion expansion aimed at raising refining capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day. The project also includes plans to produce 2.4 million tonnes of polypropylene and 400,000 metric tonnes of linear alkyl benzene, a key component in detergent manufacturing.

According to him, work on the expansion has “already commenced in earnest.”

The milestone at the Dangote facility comes as authorities continue efforts to stabilise Nigeria’s volatile foreign exchange market, with the Central Bank of Nigeria recently introducing measures to boost liquidity and reduce the gap between official and parallel exchange rates.