Addis Ababa, September 24, 2026 (FMC) — Djibouti President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh has framed the launch of a major Ethiopia-Djibouti petroleum infrastructure project as a concrete step toward African energy sovereignty, regional integration and greater reliance on African capital, infrastructure and expertise.
Speaking at the project announcement ceremony attended by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President and Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Industries Group Aliko Dangote, President Guelleh said the initiative reflects the shared determination of Ethiopia and Djibouti to turn their complementarities into concrete projects that advance regional integration.
He said the project carries national, regional and strategic significance, while commending Dangote for its investment in Djibouti’s energy sector and describing the involvement of African private capital as evidence of the potential for governments and businesses to jointly build globally competitive infrastructure on the continent.
The infrastructure, he said, will strengthen Djibouti’s logistics capacity and help secure energy supplies for the region, while creating an ecosystem capable of attracting investment, generating jobs and transferring skills and technology.
The project will include a storage terminal with capacity exceeding 375,000 cubic meters and the ability to handle five million tons of petroleum products annually. It will also serve as the starting point of the Damerjog multi-product pipeline, which President Guelleh said would ease pressure on road corridors, reduce the carbon footprint associated with fuel transportation and strengthen regional supply security, while potentially opening access to international energy markets.
President Guelleh placed the initiative within Africa’s wider energy challenge, noting that the continent possesses substantial energy resources but has long remained dependent on exporting crude resources and importing refined petroleum products.
“Every energy independence is the condition of every other independence,” he said, describing the project as one of the building blocks of African sovereignty.
He called for African energy resources to increasingly be stored in African facilities, transported through African pipelines and directed first toward African markets.
President Guelleh also stressed that regional integration would be essential to making such ambitions viable, noting that individual African markets are often too small to sustain major infrastructure projects in isolation.
He cited the African Continental Free Trade Area as providing the legal framework for a single market of more than one billion people, while calling for the continent to give that market a physical foundation through interconnected corridors, ports, pipelines and railways.
In this regard, he highlighted the Ethiopia-Djibouti partnership as an example of how the two countries’ complementary strengths can generate greater value together, with Ethiopia’s industrial dynamism and Djibouti’s position as a gateway to global markets reinforcing each other.
President Guelleh further emphasized that natural resources alone cannot deliver sustainable prosperity without the infrastructure, skills and systems needed to connect those resources to markets.
“Africa must become self-reliant not only in its resources but in its infrastructure,” he said, stressing the importance of African capital financing African projects and African engineers and technicians designing, operating and maintaining them.
He underscored the need to ensure that the expertise generated by the project remains with Africa’s young people, arguing that genuine independence requires both physical infrastructure and the knowledge needed to sustain it.
“Africa does not need to be built. Africa needs to build,” he said.
President Guelleh also described Djibouti’s position at the entrance to the Bab el-Mandeb as both a strategic privilege and a responsibility to contribute to the stability, prosperity and integration of the wider region.
He reaffirmed Djibouti’s commitment to modernizing its infrastructure, diversifying its economy and remaining an open and reliable partner for investors.
The President expressed appreciation to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Aliko Dangote, the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority and others involved in bringing the project to the launch stage.