Dangote Group plans Cameroon oil, gas push… As Nigeria lawmakers battle to meet July deadline on oil reforms

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, said he plans to diversify his group’s investments in Cameroon, starting with energy.

“We have plans to expand our investment to other sectors beginning with oil and gas,” Dangote told reporters Wednesday after meeting Cameroonian President Paul Biya in the capital, Yaounde. He didn’t provide further details.

The Nigerian billionaire, founder of the multinational industrial conglomerate Dangote Group, also announced his company will double cement production in Cameroon. Dangote opened a 1.5 million-ton cement grinding facility in the central African nation in March 2015 that ended a 40-year French monopoly in the industry.

Back here in Nigerian lawmakers are racing to pass long-awaited legislation to reform the country’s petroleum industry before the current parliamentary session ends in mid-July.

First presented to the National Assembly in 2008, the law would overhaul how energy projects in Africa’s largest crude producer are operated and funded. Wrangling between politicians and objections from oil companies have scuppered previous versions of the Petroleum Industry Bill.

A joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives is “currently looking at the final draft of the bill,” said Benjamin Kalu, a lawmaker who is the spokesman for the lower chamber of parliament. Committee members aim to submit the bill to their colleagues for adoption before they go on summer vacation on July 16, he said. Lawmakers return from their break on Sept. 6.