NIGERIA
Tycoon invests in oil refinery
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, planned to invest up to $8 billion (R73bn) to build a Nigerian oil refinery with a capacity of about 400 000 barrels a day by late 2016, almost doubling Nigeria’s refining capacity, he said on Tuesday. “This will really help not only Nigeria but sub-Saharan Africa. There has not been a new refinery for a long time in sub-Saharan Africa,” Dangote said. Past efforts to build refineries have often been delayed or cancelled, but analysts expected Dangote to be able to build a profitable Nigerian refinery because of his past successes in industry and his strong government connections. – Reuters
RWANDA
First eurobond seeks $400m
Rwanda, which starts marketing $400 million (R3.7 billion) of debut eurobonds this week, is counting on the investor appetite for African debt that enabled Zambia to increase the size of its first dollar bonds in September last year and Tanzania to attract four times the sum it had sought last month. Citigroup and BNP Paribas, the lead managers for the 10-year bond offering, would arrange investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the US starting from today, central bank governor John Rwangombwa said. – Bloomberg
CAMEROON
IMIC plans bid for mining firm
International Mining and Infrastructure Corporation (IMIC), an investment group listed in London, is preparing an offer of £147 million (R2.1 billion) for west Africa-focused mining house Afferro. It is the biggest move yet in IMIC’s strategy of building an African-orientated resources group. The bid promises to resolve the infrastructure problems that have held back Afferro’s flagship asset, the Nkout iron ore project in Cameroon, through a separately secured partnership with a subsidiary of China Railway Group. But it depends on IMIC raising the finance in the next 15 days and some analysts said it was hard to see value in the bid. – Reuters