East Africa acquired a second refining plan this month, Zambia votes tomorrow with copper at the edge of its record, and Indonesia has just asked the phosphate market for nearly a million tonnes. Three things worth the ink today.
1. Tanzania answers Lamu with a hub at Tanga
On 6 August the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, the Uganda National Oil Company and Vitol Bahrain signed a memorandum on a Tanga Regional Energy Hub covering refining, storage, logistics and distribution, with Tanzanian authorities citing potential investment above $20bn. The logic is EACOP: 1,443 km from the Tilenga and Kingfisher fields to the Chongoleani peninsula next to Tanga, designed for a peak 246,000 barrels a day. Dar es Salaam wants the barrel to stop there rather than pass through. The rival architecture is Kenyan, where Dangote Industries has picked Lamu for a 700,000 bpd refinery costed at roughly $17bn, about twelve times the 60,000 bpd planned for Uganda's own Hoima plant. Both plans are being drawn in a week when refined product is repricing hard: diesel settled at 1,329 USD/t, up 8.8% in a session, while gasoline fell 3.6% to 1,027 USD/t and Brent gained 6.3% to $88.83.
2. Zambia goes to the polls on a $6bn half-year
Zambians vote on 13 August, and the macro backdrop is the strongest the copper belt has seen in years: official figures put first-half copper output above $6bn by value, with COMEX copper printing 6.688 USD/lb, 14,744 USD/t, up 1.8% on the day and back at the record's edge as the Grasberg smelter halt and a boiler leak at Gresik hold up Indonesian shipments. The election machinery is noisier than the price. The Electoral Commission has revoked former Nkana MP Binwell Mpundu's accreditation to the National Results Centre over a threat video, and is answering questions about a contradiction in its own guidance on how ballots should be marked. State House has warned politicians that incitement to kill will not be treated as campaign rhetoric. Cobalt, meanwhile, sat unchanged at 56,290 USD/t.
3. Indonesia bids for 900,000 tonnes of phosphate
Pupuk Indonesia has closed the initial submission round of its tender to buy 900,000 t of light or yellow granular phosphate, one of the larger single buy-side asks of the season and enough tonnage to set the tone into the fourth quarter. DAP did not move on it, holding at 792.5 USD/t for a second session. Urea went the other way, down 3.5% to 386 USD/t. On the supply side of the nitrogen story, Topsoe has signed to provide ammonia synthesis technology for First Ammonia's green production facility, which is a 2029 conversation rather than a Q4 one.
Also crossing: Guinea's mines ministry says Nimba will sell bauxite through monthly tenders open to global traders and miners, a mechanism change worth a diary entry for anyone with alumina customers. Trafigura is pushing further into Congolese logistics and mineral processing, per Kinshasa reporting, while in Ituri a coalition marched in Bunia against oil development around Lake Albert. Sugar #11 rose 2.2% to 16.82 USc/lb, 371 USD/t, as Kenyan cane growers welcomed the government's halt on new sugar imports and the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association wrote to Islamabad asking permission to export its surplus. The Baltic Dry index fell 37 points to 3,046.