Construction is under way to fill two missing highway links in a route that connects Kenya and Ethiopia. The two countries see the project as a way to strengthen both their transport network and economic integration.
Tanzania has stepped up the pace for building a $1-billion natural-gas pipeline, accelerating the project’s target completion date to December 2012 from the initial March 2013 goal.
A contract was awarded recently for a $3.5-billion ethylene plant at the Ain Sokhna complex, 120 km east of Cairo. Egypt is in the throes of a $19-billion petrochemical-plant construction boom. The national strategy, laid out in a 20-year master plan, is to boost domestic production capacities to 600,000 ton per year of ethylene and 1.9 tons per year of polymers, according to the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.Currently, Egypt’s petrochemical sector represents 27% of its total industrial production. The 2002-22 plan calls for 14 petrochemical complexes. The 2002-08 first phase involved eight plants valued at $5.6 billion. The
Construction of new cement plants is under way in Africa. At least nine new cement plants are under way in Africa, where leading producers are expanding capacities to meet growing construction demands on the continent. The work will cost billions of dollars and take several years to complete, but political instability poses risks.All eyes are on North Africa, where cement demand is expected to boom once new governments review construction sector policies in Egypt, Algeria and Libya.The rebuilding of Libya is at the top of the regional agenda. However, the region's leading cement firms report sluggish performance—especially in Egypt—due to
Map by Shem Oirere/ENR Art Department Planned North Road across Tanzania includes a 53-km section cutting through Serengeti National Park. Related Links: Serengeti Road Project Halted for Wildlife Study Tanzania has altered its design for a new 53-kilometer-long highway through the world-famous Serengeti National Park in response to international concerns raised over the project’s impact on the UN world heritage site.Plans for paving the stretch have been dropped. The country’s minister of tourism and natural resources says the road section will be graveled to reduce harm to the more than two million wildebeests that use the section as their annual
Map by Shem Oirere/ENR Art Department The Inga III hydro plant will harness energy from the Congo River's Inga Rapids, located some 225 kilometers from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Construction of an $8-billion to $10-billion hydroelectric plant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be delayed and cost more if its design remains unchanged, the African Development Bank said in late June.The Inga III hydropower project, on the Congo River's Inga Rapids, located some 225 kilometers from the capital, Kinshasa, is likely to be bogged down by its design. That design, by SNC-Lavalin, Quebec, entails
Map Shem Oirere/ENR Art Department Nava Bharat will start work this year on a new $650-million powerplant at the mouth of Zambia's biggest coal mine, Maamba Collieries. Singapore-based Nava Bharat will start work this year on a new $650-million powerplant at the mouth of Zambia's biggest coal mine, Maamba Collieries, about 410 kilometers southeast of the capital, Lusaka. The mine has been dormant since 1997, but it was re-opened by the country’s president, Rupiah Banda, on July 8.Construction of the 300-MW plant at the state-owned facility is scheduled to be finished by 2014. A second 300-MW phase could be built
Construction of East Africa's first-ever standard-gauge railway, which is being undertaken by Kenya, the region's largest economy, has been pushed back by nine months after Kenya’s railway operator delayed the procurement process for the $3-billion project.The Kenyan government now has allocated $36 million in the new financial year, which began on July 1, to jump-start the stalled design studies that were initially slated for completion in April, according to Kenyan Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. The new railway line linking Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi would ease freight movement from the port of Mombasa to landlocked countries, helping to reduce transport
Tanzania has awarded Jacobsen Elektro AS, a Norwegian power engineering firm, a $124.8 million contract to supply and install power generation equipment for a 100MW power plant in the capital Dar es Salaam. The project, funded by Tanzania and Norway, is considered crucial in attempts at easing chronic outages around the capital and for ongoing efforts to integrate regional electricity generation. It also shows how Norway is increasing its presence in Tanzania's energy sector, despite intensifying pressure from Chinese firms.The project is also a keystone in regional electricity integration plans, particularly the Kenya-Tanzania-Zambia interconnection that involves the installation of a