Oil company the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) earlier this month signed an agreement with methanol producer Proman to develop the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) first world-scale methanol production facility at the TA’ZIZ Industrial Chemicals Zone in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. Under the terms of the agreement, chemicals company Abu Dhabi Chemicals Derivatives Company (TA’ZIZ) and Proman will construct a natural gas to methanol facility with an anticipated capacity of up to 1.8-million tons a year.

The head of South Africa’s state power utility held discussions with the World Bank as it explores options for transitioning from coal-fired stations to cleaner sources of energy. Eskom Holdings CEO Andre de Ruyter travelled to the bank’s headquarters for the talks earlier this week. The utility supplies more than 90% of the country’s electricity, the bulk of it from coal.

The City of Cape Town is at the preliminary stages of assessing the business case for the deployment of battery energy storage systems (BESS) as part of its evolving strategy to eliminate the threat of load-shedding for its residents. The city is already moving ahead with plans to procure 300 MW of renewables generation from independent power producers and generation development manager Shane Prins reports that BESS is also on the city’s radar.

Equipment distributor Capital Equipment Group (CEG) has maintained its success in the South African construction industry despite challenging economic conditions, global supply issues and escalating costs, which worsened because of Covid-19 and strike action. “In today’s challenging conditions, it is important that we assist our customers by offering flexible finance and service options. We have recognised a trend whereby construction companies tend to hold onto equipment for longer, rather than opt to invest regularly in new machines. For this reason, we have enhanced our repair and maintenance facilities around South Africa to ensure that a full range of spare parts is made readily available,” says CEG CEO Tony Sinclair.

Global financial organisation the World Bank’s ‘Inequality in Southern Africa: An assessment of the Southern African Customs Union’ report states that promoting equality of opportunity, improving education and agricultural productivity, supporting early childhood development (ECD) and improving public service delivery can help to reduce inequality in the region. The Southern African Customs Union (Sacu), comprising Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa, is the world’s most unequal region. Consumption inequality across the Sacu region is more than 40% higher than the averages for sub-Saharan Africa and other upper-middle-income countries.