Here's your African Business News This Week — Aug 25-29, 2026:
1. Dangote Refinery Dominates Headlines
Nigeria's Dangote refinery is driving a 7x rise in Nigeria's petroleum product exports. Intra-Nigerian shipments jumped to 211,000 bpd in Q2 2026 vs 81,000 bpd in 2025, and exports to Europe hit 130,000 bpd. The refinery is now nearing a record IPO in Nigeria, with investors watching oil supply costs closely. The JSE confirmed Dangote has "strong intent" to list in South Africa after the Nigeria IPO.
2. MTN Group Shines
Africa's biggest telco MTN approved a $375 million (6 billion rand) share buyback after a 21.3% rise in half-year profit. MTN also said it is eyeing banking licences as it pushes deeper into lending, and plans AI-ready data centres in SA and Nigeria.
3. Big Finance Deals
Standard Chartered + IFC launched a $300M supply chain finance facility for 8 markets: Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
South Africa signed $405M in loans from the BRICS-backed New Development Bank for a hospital in Limpopo and water supply projects.
4. Mining & GoldGold Fields flagged Ghana licence renewal risk even as half-year profit surged 81% on higher gold prices.
Ghana is banning unrefined artisanal gold dore exports from September 1, forcing refiners to process locally.
5. Kenya Pressure Points
Traders in Kenya protested and police fired tear gas over an import duty hike that started Aug 20. Meanwhile Kenya Airways reported its first-half pretax loss widened to 15.92 billion shillings ($123M).
African banks are also in hot pursuit of Kenya's profits - CIB (Egypt), Access Bank (Nigeria) and Nedbank (SA) are all trying to expand there.
6. Broader Market Mood
Markets opened fragile this week as gold/silver slump triggered biggest selloff in SA equities since 2020, Nigeria's private sector slipped into contraction for first time in over a decade, while Ethiopia pushed retail and gold market reforms.
Bright spot: IMF says AI could lift Sub-Saharan Africa economy by 4% if power/internet improve. Microsoft & G42 announced $1B geothermal data center in Kenya and Cassava/NVIDIA $700M GPU deal across 5 countries.