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Sierra Leone hopes to relaunch its licensing round in Q1 2019 following a change of leadership at the Petroleum Directorate. The round opened in January offering five newly delineated offshore blocks, including areas of undeveloped discoveries from previous drilling campaigns, shallow water and deep and ultra-deep water.

Royal Dutch Shell, Vitol Group and Africa-focused private investment firm Helios Investment Partners have entered into exclusive negotiations for the potential joint acquisition by Vitol and Helios of equity in Shell’s downstream businesses in 19 countries in Africa.

A €115m loan for the New & Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) is under appraisal at the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance a 200MW wind farm in the Gulf of Suez.The loan represents 31.9% of the total cost of the plant, estimated at €360m. The government aims to increase wind energy’s share of total generation capacity to 12% by 2020, and the NREA prequalified 28 wind power projects in January.

There are some reassuringly familiar international names among the successful bidders for generation plants in Nigeria’s privatisation process, but the successful consortia also contain a number of less-known local companies whose beneficial ownership has not been revealed; some firms are linked to powerful former military leaders.

Malaysia’s Petronas is preparing to cease production at the Chinguetti field as part of the decommissioning process. Sterling Energy said on 26 January the abandonment and decommissioning project was awaiting final government approval. The plan consists of two phases, with cessation of production and temporary well suspension undertaken from early 2018 to Q2 2018, followed by final plugging and abandonment of the well stock in 2019-20.

Algeria’s plans for developing more solar capacity for domestic use are advanced. Although the impact of proposed projects on total installed capacity will be slight, the targets are substantial.

Israeli miner Elenilto plans to acquire a 1,400km2 3D seismic survey over its Senegal Offshore Sud Shallow Block “within the next few months”. The company said an oil resource assessment, based on reprocessed 2D seismic and wells, suggested potential of more than 1.5bn barrels of oil. “About half of the resource is in first priority leads associated with shallow-water (12-26 metres) salt domes and deeper water (1,000-1,500 metres) shelf edge traps,” the company said. Elenilto said it had selected two target areas for further exploration.

Total has announced an oil discovery with the Ivoire-1X exploration well in block CI-100 close to the disputed maritime border with Ghana. The well was drilled to a total depth of 5,044 metres and encountered 28 metres of net oil pay in a series of about 100 metres of Cretaceous reservoirs. Ivoire-1X is Total’s first well in the block and reveals that the Tano Basin petroleum system extends into CI-100.

Reports that both the government of South Sudan and nominal opposition leader Riek Machar have been in talks with Khartoum over securing control of South Sudan’s oilfields have roused fears that the already bloody fight could escalate further. Speaking at Juba airport on 6 January at the conclusion of a visit by Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir, Sudan’s foreign minister Ali Ahmed Karti told reporters that the two countries were “in consultations” over a proposal from the South Sudanese government for the deployment of a “mixed force to protect oilfields in South Sudan”.

UK-based miner Hummingbird Resources has signed a co-operation agreement with IFC InfraVentures and Aldwych International to develop a 20-30MW hydropower plant in south-east Liberia. The project aims to reduce operating costs for the company’s Dugbe 1 gold project as well as providing power for the surrounding region and, in particular, the town of Greenville, the Alternative Investment Market-listed company said in a stock exchange filing on 7 April.

The 150MW Zongo II dam in Kongo Central province has started supplying an initial 37MW to the grid. A formal inauguration is planned for December. The project was built by Sinohydro and financed by a $360m loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. Visiting the site on 2 September, energy and water resources minister Ingele Ifoto said the plant would significantly improve supply to Kinshasa and Kongo Central. According to a project engineer from Société Nationale d’Electricité (Snel), the dam, power house and return channel are almost 100% complete.

French developer Urbasolar Group launched construction of a 30MWp solar PV plant at Pâ in the Boucle du Mouhoun region in a ceremony on 1 February. The plant is being developed as a public-private partnership between the government, Urbasolar, and local partner PPS. The plant will cover an area of 35 hectares and is expected to produce 51.7GWh/yr, supplying the towns of Pâ, Wona, Houndé, Yaramoko and Boromo. Construction is expected to take ten months.

BG Tanzania has given UAE-based Stanford Marine a time-charter contract for the Stanford Buzzard platform

Dana Petroleum has announced a “new brand identity” aimed at helping it expand in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; Eve Howell has set up a new venture with Mauritania and Mali enthusiast Max de Vietri and Colombian geologist Ricardo Garzon, named EMR Resources; Vancouver-based Simba Energy has begun trading on the US over-the-counter market’s highest tier, the OTCQX, which aims to give international companies access to US investors

Big players, including BP and Petrobras, are piling into the Namibian offshore, finding themselves in partnership with some largely unknown local partners