Nigeria's crude oil exports for January 2017 are expected to increase as cargoes of Forcados which were initially scheduled for the end of December are not expected to load as planned, loading programmes revealed. A group of loading programmes revealed that a total of 55 cargoes (1.64 million barrels per day) of crude oil are scheduled to load in January compared to the previous export plans of...

Oil companies have voiced interest in developing Uganda's planned oil refinery and an investor for the project is to be selected by February 2017, a top government official revealed. According to Energy and Mineral Development Minister, Irene Muloni (photo), some new firms including China's Sinopec had expressed interest in the project and fresh talks were in progress. “There are a number of...

Ivorian Minister for urbanism and construction Management Sancho has inaugurated last Monday in Assume, in the South-East of the country, a single office to contain the “land-related pressure” under which the coastal town presently is, APA reported. Headed by Marcelino Jonah, the decentralized structure should help according to the Minister “bring administration closer to the people of the...

The European Union has provided Cote d'Ivoire a budget support of 40 billion CFA (62 million euros). The facility falls under a budget support program for good governance and development signed by the two entities on November 21, 2016. According to the Ivorian Prime Minister, Daniel Kaplan Duncan, steps taken under the budget support program fall in line with the strategic axes 1 and 2 of the...

Maritime industry in West Africa could in the years to come create 300,000 jobs and generate $3.3 billion of revenues against $400 million presently. This was revealed in a report from Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Spanish Investigation Journalism Organization porCausa. Entitled West Africa’s missing fish, the report states that to achieve this goal, West African...

The UNDP will establish a global network of 200 think tanks to help define better policies and develop a better legal environment for the South-South cooperation, Xinhua reports. Coming from developed and emerging countries, the think tanks will be invited to develop a collective reflexion, necessary to implement UN's 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. According to Xiaojun Grace Wang,...

Mauritian banking group SBM Holdings announced in a statement published on Nov 22 that it will acquire 100% of Kenyan lender Fidelity Bank. SBM Holdings indicated that it would spend Sh100 ($0.98) to buy the lender which detains only 0.39% of market share in the country. The Mauritian bank should however have to inject Sh1.45bn ($14.32 million) into Fidelity Bank after the deal is sealed, under...

South Africa will develop only 1,359 MW of nuclear power plants by 2037. This is a significant drop from 9,600 MW it said it would develop by 2030. The news was revealed as Eskom, the national power utility, disclosed its draft for the National energy plan. This draft also states that nuclear power output in the country would be increased to 20,385 MW by 2050. Eskom however said it would issue...

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) launched on November 21 in Abidjan, in partnership with the European Commission, a fund specially dedicated to financing African start-ups, small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The €150 million fund, named BoostAfrica, should leverage up to a billion euros of new investments, support more than 1500 innovating...

Visiting Niger, the president of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), Christian Adovelande, announced that the Bank would submit to its board two projects worth CFA27 billion to finance road and energy infrastructures in Niger. Regarding the road projects, the funding will be directed to the Bela-Gaya road and the Bela2-Nigerian border and Gaya-Nigerian border junctions. These are...