Infrastructure

Gabon considers new 340Km railway line between Owendo and Booué

Picture: PAT Gabon

By

Earlier this week, the Government of Gabon signed a contract with INPEX SA, subsidiary of RISE Gabon, to carry out necessary studies on the planned 340km Komo-Ogooue Railway (KOR) project.

RISE Gabon is an investment vehicle dedicated to financing the country’s infrastructure and was born out of a partnership with the Islamic Development Bank in 2020.

The new railway line would link Owendo in Libreville to Booué in Central Gabon. It is part of the country’s efforts to expand its logistic network and support the diversification of its economy. Under a 30-year concession, Gabon is already financing and upgrading its strategic 650km Transgabonaise railway line that connects Owendo to Franceville.

Since 2015, the Transgabonaise railway has notably been subject to a €509m modernization, renovation and upgrade programme (the “PRN”) to restore its initial capacity by 2024. In 2021, an additional CAPEX of €197m was agreed upon (“PRN2”) to further increase the capacity of the line to reach a total of 19 m MT by 2027.

Read more

Nigeria’s new Infrastructure Corporation opens for business

On April 8th, term sheets were signed between the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp) and four independent infrastructure asset managers: Sanlam InfraWorks, Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), the AAA Infrastructure Nigeria consortium (comprising of Afrinvest, Africa Plus Partners, and ARC Asset Management), and Chapel Hill Denham. InfraCorp is a new privately-managed investment, infrastructure and industrial vehicle promoted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA). Last year, President Muhammadu Buhari had already cleared the way for the launch of InfraCorp by approving its initial seed capital of NGN 1 tn ($2.4 bn). CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele expressed confidence that a substantial portion of the NGN 15 tn ($35 bn) funding required for the first phase of the execution of InfraCorp was available locally. The asset managers are responsible for originating, structuring, executing, and managing end-to-end bankable infrastructure projects in Nigeria.

Nigerian independent launches new medical diagnostics laboratory in Delta State

ND Western, a member of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG) of Nigeria, and the state-owned Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, have officially commissioned a new world-class laboratory in Delta State yesterday. The Delta Plus Diagnostics facility was completed earlier this year in Ogunu and provides a world-class, fully equipped, molecular laboratory offering Covid-19 and blood testing services to hospitals, health management organisations (HMOs), corporations and individuals. The project is the result of a successful and strategic partnership between ND Western, Nigerian think tank Bloom Public Health and Nigerian provider of laboratory equipment Katchey Laboratories. “This partnership is an outstanding model in health financing, and one to be emulated by other stakeholders in Nigeria’s public health sector,” said Bloom Public Health. Delta Plus Diagnostics is accredited by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and now serves the South-South region of Nigeria with critical medical diagnostics services, thereby reducing the need to travel long distances.