A proposed Dangote-backed petroleum network could add another major fuel corridor through Zambia, linking Namibia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dangote Industries has outlined plans for a 2,620 to 2,650-kilometre petroleum pipeline network across Southern Africa, including a branch expected to run through Zimbabwe, Zambia and into the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dangote Group Chairman Aliko Dangote said the network is expected to be launched in October and would start in Namibia, extend through Botswana towards South Africa, while another line would move through Zimbabwe, Zambia and the DRC.
The announcement is linked to Dangote Industries Namibia’s plans to develop a large petroleum storage terminal at Walvis Bay, positioning the Namibian port as a potential distribution point for fuel into landlocked Southern African markets. The proposed terminal is currently progressing through environmental and land-development processes.
For Zambia, the significance goes beyond the individual project.
The country is increasingly appearing at the centre of several competing petroleum supply corridors.
Zambia already receives diesel through the 1,710-kilometre TAZAMA Pipeline from Dar es Salaam to Ndola, while government is also advancing plans for a new Tanzania-Zambia multi-product pipeline.
The Ministry of Energy also lists the proposed Namibia-Zambia Oil Pipeline at pre-feasibility stage and says an MoU was signed in 2025 to develop a petroleum pipeline linking Beira, Mozambique, through Zimbabwe to Zambia.
That emerging network could gradually reshape the geography of Zambia’s downstream fuel logistics.
Today, significant volumes of petrol, Jet A-1 and kerosene still enter Zambia by road, while road transport also supplements pipeline-delivered diesel. The Ministry of Energy says about 80 percent of low-sulphur diesel is currently delivered through TAZAMA, with the balance delivered by road.
A commercially viable western petroleum corridor from Walvis Bay, particularly one continuing through Zambia into the DRC mining belt, would therefore introduce another potential route into a market historically supplied primarily from Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa.
For now, Dangote’s announcement remains a proposed infrastructure programme rather than an operating pipeline. But the direction is becoming clearer: Zambia is no longer looking at a single petroleum supply corridor. It is increasingly becoming the intersection of competing eastern, western and southern fuel routes.
For the logistics industry, the bigger question will be what happens if several of them actually get built.
Logistics Now will examine the emerging petroleum corridor race in a forthcoming analysis, including which projects are most bankable, where the proposed networks overlap and what greater pipeline penetration could mean for Zambia’s road-tanker market.