Daily Briefs

Daily Brief — Thursday, 22 October 2026

The most important developments in sub-Saharan Africa. Six days a week.

22 October 2026

Dangote buys quarter of Kenya Pipeline Company

Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote said on 21 October that his group had bought about a quarter of Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), the listed operator of Kenya's main fuel pipelines and depots. The 24.76% stake, about 4.5 billion shares worth Sh42.5 billion (about $330 million), came from Kenyan public bodies through a block trade on the Nairobi Securities Exchange; President William Ruto had announced the sale a day earlier without naming the buyer. On 30 September Dangote broke ground on a planned Sh2.2 trillion ($16 billion) refinery at Lamu. The purchase gives the refinery's owner a large stake in the network that distributes fuel across Kenya, linking refining and distribution under one investor.

22 October 2026

Equatorial Guinea moves to make Gepetrol its sole fuel distributor

Equatorial Guinea's Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue on 20 October gave state oil company Gepetrol 48 hours to present a plan to become the country's sole fuel distributor. Fuel companies and buyers from neighbouring states would purchase through its unit Gepetrol Servicios, and the state would take back strategic storage tanks now leased to the trader Tradex. The order follows the country's third fuel shortage this year, after three distributors ran dry at once; on 16 October the government fined Total GE and Tradex about $1.7 million and $850,000. A state monopoly would pool imports and storage in one company, but it pushes out the private distributors and makes supply depend on Gepetrol's ability to finance cargoes.

22 October 2026

Nigeria ends 20-year dispute over Lagos airport terminal

Nigeria's government signed a settlement on 20 October with Bi-Courtney Aviation Services, ending a dispute of nearly 20 years over the domestic terminal the firm runs at Lagos's Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA2). Bi-Courtney drops its claims, including court-awarded damages of 132 billion naira (about $99 million), while the government writes off concession fees that built up during the dispute. The 2003 concession led to rival claims that reached the Supreme Court and left the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) without concession income for two decades. The deal restores fee payments to FAAN and opens the terminal to regional African flights, adding airport capacity in Lagos. Bi-Courtney must expand the apron and finish a long-abandoned hotel within 24 months.

22 October 2026

Eni seeks builder for 75 MW gas power plant in Mozambique

Italian energy company Eni has opened a tender for a contractor to build a 75-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant at Temane, in Mozambique's Inhambane province, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported on 21 October. The plant, worth about $130 million, will run on gas engines and is to be implemented with state utility Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM); applications for the engineering, procurement and construction contract close on 31 October. President Daniel Chapo announced the project in October 2025, when Eni approved its $7.2 billion Coral Norte floating liquefied natural gas project. The plant would turn more of Mozambique's own gas into electricity, adding to the 450 MW Temane thermal plant under construction nearby.

22 October 2026

First Quantum’s Zambian copper mine runs 8% above design capacity

First Quantum Minerals said on 21 October that its expanded Kansanshi copper mine in Zambia is on track to process about 27 million tonnes of ore in 2026, 8% above the design capacity of its new plant. The $1.2 billion S3 expansion, commissioned in August 2025, added a sulphide processing line of 25 million tonnes a year and nearly doubled the mine's milling capacity. Zambia supplied about 93% of the Canadian miner's copper in 2025, after its Cobre Panamá mine in Panama was suspended in 2023. A faster ramp-up at one of the country's largest mines supports Zambia's target of three million tonnes of copper a year by 2031, up from about 890,000 tonnes in 2025.

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