The most important developments in sub-Saharan Africa. Six days a week.
High oil prices are now feeding through to fuel and business costs in East Africa. Tanzania's regulator raised its October cap prices on 7 October, lifting petrol in Dar es Salaam by 6.9% to 4,057 shillings a litre, while Uganda's Stanbic purchasing managers' index fell to 53.0 in September from 55.0 as firms reported higher fuel and transport costs. Kenya's central bank said the same day that fuel imports had widened its current-account deficit to 3.1% of gross domestic product (GDP). Inland importers that buy refined diesel face the largest bills, while exporters of crude gain. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned on 7 October that high energy prices will likely persist even if the Gulf war ends soon.
South Africa's Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on 7 October issued a determination that prioritises 4,600 megawatts (MW) of battery storage and 5,000 MW of gas-fired power for new public bidding rounds. State utility Eskom may bid for the first time, and the determination includes no new wind or solar plants. The grid operator wants more flexible capacity, while rising curtailment forces the transmission company to compensate earlier renewable producers; three previous battery rounds procured only 1,744 MW. The shift favours storage developers, gas suppliers and Eskom over solar and wind investors, and the gas plan raises the need for import terminals. A later determination is due to cover renewables and pumped storage.
Witnesses told Reuters that dozens of Eritrean soldiers drove through Adigrat, a town in Ethiopia's Tigray region about 25 kilometres from the border, on 7 October. The commander of the pro-government Tigray Peace Force, Gebreigziabher Beyene, said Eritrean troops had entered with heavy weapons; Eritrea's Information Minister Yemane Meskel did not deny it and accused Ethiopia of a war of aggression. Fighting resumed on 23 September, Ethiopian forces took the regional capital Mekelle on 5 October, and the two countries cut diplomatic ties on 1 October. If confirmed, it would be the first Eritrean ground deployment of the new war, turning an internal conflict into a war between states on the Red Sea coast.
Zambia's state mining investor ZCCM-IH, which holds 20.6% of Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), has approved a $498 million plant to recover copper from tailings at Nchanga in Chingola, it said on 7 October. The plant, to be built by China NERIN Engineering over about two years, should produce about 70,000 tonnes a year of high-grade copper cathode. KCM, controlled by India's Vedanta, will fund it from its own resources. The project would add output from old mine waste without new digging, supporting Zambia's plan to raise copper production while prices are high, and it extends Chinese contractors' role in the Copperbelt.
Togo's power utility CEET warned of targeted power cuts from 7 to 22 October while maintenance on the West African Gas Pipeline halts gas deliveries to its thermal plants. The plants run almost entirely on gas from the pipeline, which has carried Nigerian gas along the coast since 2008. CEET will switch to more expensive liquid fuels, but said some outages are unavoidable; the work had been planned for September. The cuts will raise generation costs and disrupt businesses for two weeks, and they show how far Togo's power supply depends on one pipeline and on Nigerian gas.
