Pipeline push putting Zimbabwe back on the map

Zimbabwe’s plan to establish itself as a regional petrochemical hub is attracting pipeline investment from both the east and west coasts. For 40 years, Companhia do Pipeline Moçambique-Zimbabwe, Limitada (CPMZ) has fed fuel to Zimbabwe through a 294km pipeline to the now mothballed Feruka oil refinery in eastern Zimbabwe. From there, it is piped 295km to Msasa in Harare by the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC). The company says it supplies fuel to neighbours Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Botswana. In May 2024, work was completed on a $40 million upgrade to the Beira – Feruka pipeline, which increased capacity from two to three million cubic metres of petroleum products a year. “This will be a more efficient and cheaper alternative to transporting fuel by road from the Port of Beira, making it possible to reduce the distance travelled by road operators by around 1 100 kilometres, as well as improving road safety. “The expectation with the increase in capacity is that it can contribute to increasing the competitiveness of the Port of Beira against competitive ports in the region,” CPMZ said in a statement at the inauguration of two new pumping stations. CPMZ has announced that it is working on a second phase, which will increase capacity to over five million cubic metres a year by installing a wider diameter pipe than the present 10-inch one. There is competition on three fronts – it was reported in November 2024 that the Zimbabwean government had revived plans to construct a second pipeline, with the Mutapa Investment Fund (MIF). There could be competition for the Zambian, DRC and Malawi business. In May 2025, Mozambican president Daniel Chapo announced at the 11th Mozambican Mining and Energy Conference in Maputo the signing of a $1.5 billion agreement between the governments of Mozambique and Zambia to build a pipeline from Beira to Ndola in northern Zambia. It will have a capacity of 3.5m tons (around 3.5m cubic metres) of petroleum products a year. The project includes the building of storage facilities in Beira and Ndola. Chapo also shared plans to build a modular fuel refinery in partnership with the publicly owned fuel company Petromoc and Nigeria’s Aiteo Eastern E&P Group. The facility, set for production within two years, is expected to produce 200 000 barrels a day of refined products, including gasoline, diesel, naphtha and Jet A1 aviation fuel. It will supply Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe, according to reports. Then, in November this year, Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote announced plans to invest at least $1bn in a new 2 200km petroleum pipeline from Walvis Bay through Botswana to Harare. He said the pipeline would complement the Dangote Group’s plans to operate the world’s biggest oil refinery. In October 2025, Dangote announced that capacity at his group’s Dangote refinery in Lagos, Nigeria, would be expanded from 650 000 barrels a day to 1.4m. “When it is completed, this will be the largest refinery ever built at a single site, surpassing India’s Jamnagar refinery,” Dangote told reporters. The Indian refinery is currently the world’s biggest on a single site, with a capacity of 1.24m barrels a day. ER