Energy
Africa: Financing Africa's petrochemical projects
How Africa's petrochemical expansion gets financed against an infrastructure funding gap of $130B–$170B.
Archive
Stories Shem has written for publications around the world, with his own analysis for this site. Headlines from other publications link to the publisher, who owns and hosts the full article.

Thanks for reading. If there's a story I should be following, or one you'd like me to report for you, write to me.
Shem Oirere · shem@shemoirere.com
Independent reporting on construction, energy, agriculture and transport across Africa.
shem@shemoirere.comSections
Energy & RefiningFood & AgricultureConstruction & InfrastructureBuildings & LiftsRail & TransportWork with Shem
Commission a story© 2026 Shem Oirere. Articles written for other publications belong to those publications and are linked, not reproduced.
Energy
How Africa's petrochemical expansion gets financed against an infrastructure funding gap of $130B–$170B.
Energy
South Sudan holds some of sub-Saharan Africa's largest proven oil reserves, but unrest is holding back its refining plans.
Energy
Insecurity and low oil prices have hurt investment across Nigeria's oil chain, and with it petrochemicals growth.
Energy
How African refineries will pay for upgrades to make low-sulfur marine fuel ahead of the IMO deadline.
Energy
Why East Africa's coordinated fuel standards, developed from January 2015, are hard to put into practice.
Energy
Africa produced about 7.9 MMbpd of crude in 2016, yet refining capacity investment lags.
Energy
Lower crude prices, a growing transport sector and weak refining drive demand for new fuel storage.
Energy
Technology gaps in sub-Saharan refining make efficiency, product quality and carbon compliance hard.
Energy
South Africa's cleaner-fuels rules stall as refiners and government argue over who pays for upgrades.