Finance

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is cutting 4,000 megawatts from South Africa’s electricity grid on Thursday, giving consumers no respite even on a public holiday, as it continues rotating outages that seek to lower demand and avoid a collapse of the network. It’s the eighth day of blackouts that have disrupted business and sparked outrage in a country that’s home to the continent’s most-industrialized economy, posing a challenge for the ruling…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Moody’s Investors Service said investment in the water sector of Cape Town, the South African city hit by shortages in the past two years, will bolster its economic strength and support its credit profile. The coastal city plans to diversify its water supply and better manage demand to reduce the chances of future water restrictions, with about half of its $692 million borrowing during the next three years going…

SOUTH SUDAN (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Sudan plans to increase oil production by more than a third this year as it reopens wells in the wake of a peace agreement to end a five-year conflict that disrupted output. The accord, signed in September, has contributed to a resumption of production at previously abandoned oil fields, the Petroleum Ministry said Wednesday in an emailed statement. The country is targeting pumping 200,000 barrels per day by…

LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Africa’s richest woman secured a fresh mandate as board member of Angola’s biggest telecommunications company when shareholders met Tuesday to discuss corporate governance in the wake of legal action by one of the firm’s biggest investors. The meeting at Unitel SA, in which Isabel dos Santos owns 25 percent stake and has been chairwoman, came after an arbitration court ruled that Brazilian telecommunications company Oi SA was entitled to receive $654 million from other…

SOUTH SUDAN (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Sudan’s oil production will increase by the end of the year as wells reopen in Africa’s youngest country following a truce to end a five-year war, the International Monetary Fund said. The government and rebel leaders signed a peace accord in September as they sought to end a war that had raged since 2013. The conflict more than halved the country’s oil production to about 120,000 barrels…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – A South African engineering contractors’ lobby group asked the the government to better enforce security as criminals have disrupted or vandalized 25.5 billion rand ($1.8 billion) of construction projects across the country. Armed gangs “recently” disrupted the 1.65 billion-rand Mtentu Bridge project in the Eastern Cape province, and a 2.4 billion-rand oil-storage investment project at Saldanha in the Western Cape was halted on March 13 after people demanding to…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The New Development Bank plans to lend as much as $780 million to Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. for infrastructure projects this year as the ailing South African power utility battles to keep power supply steady. Eskom, which on Wednesday entered a seventh day of controlled power cuts, is contending with operational and financial challenges, threatening the productivity of Africa’s most-industrialized economy. The government is considering various interventions to turn…