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Société Nationale d’Electricité (Snel) has given ABB an order worth $107m to upgrade the 1,700km Inga-Kolwezi power transmission link, one of the world’s longest electricity transmission systems. ABB will refurbish the stations that convert alternating current to direct current and back on the 560MW link it built in 1982. The link uses high-voltage direct current technology to transmit power from the Inga Falls hydropower station on the Congo River to the mining district of Katanga and enables excess power to be exported to the Southern African Power Pool.

Aminex chief executive Stuard Detmer has left the company after 15 months to “pursue other business interests”. Aminex chairman Brian Hall, who had stepped back from the day-to-day running of the company after Detmer’s appointment, has returned as executive chairman, the post he retired from in December 2011.

The Petrobel joint venture has given Saipem an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract for the accelerated start-up of the Zohr gas field development project. Petrobel, a joint venture between Eni and Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, is in charge of developing the Zohr field on behalf of PetroShorouk, a joint venture between Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company and Eni. Schlumberger subsidiary OneSubsea is providing the subsea production systems and Aker Solutions is supplying the umbilicals.

Société Nationale d’Electricité du Burkina (Sonabel) has contracted MAN Energy Solutions to supply three diesel gensets for the expansion of the Kossodo thermal power plant in Ouagadougou. The Germany-based engineering group announced on 18 June that it would supply three MAN 18V51/60TS engines to raise the capacity of the baseload plant in Kossodo, a suburb of the capital, by 55MW to 110MW, and in the process increase national generation capacity by almost 20%. Local company Tecmon BF is acting as the main contractor.

US-based company West Africa LNG Group Inc signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Guinea on 8 March to develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to serve the industrial, mining and agro-processing sectors.Chief executive Cem Hacioglu told African Energy the import terminal would be sited in the Kamsar port region to supply planned bauxite processing plants and agricultural processing and packaging plants at a new Special Economic Zone (SEZ) 50km inland at Boké.

Houston-based Vaalco Energy said on 20 July the Southeast Etame 2-H well had been brought on line at a rate of 3,400 b/d. The well is the first to be drilled and placed on production at the new Southeast Etame/North Tchibala (SEENT) platform (AE 287/12). The well was drilled to a depth of 4,270 metres, targeting a new reservoir discovered in 2010 in the Gamba formation. The Transocean Constellation II jack-up rig has now been moved to a second slot on the same platform to drill the North Tchibala 1-H well targeting the Dentale formation in another previously unproduced field, North Tchibala.

Afren has sacked chief executive officer Osman Shahenshah and chief operating officer Shahid Ullah for gross misconduct following a review into the receipt of unauthorised payments by members of management and senior employees. In a 13 October statement, Afren said it had also sacked directors Iain Wright and Galib Virani for receiving payments in breach of the company’s approved remuneration policy. The review by Willkie Farr & Gallagher (WFG) found that Shahenshah and Ullah had paid themselves $17.1m in extraordinary bonuses out of funds transferred to a British Virgin Islands special purpose vehicle.

Having failed to secure oil acreage in the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) region, New York-based Jarch Management Group has purchased a 70% interest in Leac For Agriculture And Investment Company Ltd, a Southern Sudanese company incorporated in Juba.

Tower Resources has signed a contract with Vantage Drilling International for the Topaz Driller jack-up rig for the Njom-3 well on the Thali licence in Q2 2019. The rig, a Baker Marine Pacific Class 375 jack-up, recently drilled two wells on the Etinde licence for NewAge and is currently employed in Gabon.

There is intense speculation that further change will follow at Sonatrach, with former pipelines vice president (VP) Abdelhamid Zerguine said to be in line to replace unpopular president director-general (PDG) Nordine Cherouati

International oil companies’ Algiers offices have instituted emergency measures to protect their staff following unattributed terrorist threats against them, setting the rumour mill into overdrive in the Algerian capital. But at the same time IOCs say they are determined that business should continue as usual, worried that a public stress on security issues could harm their already sensitive relations with the authorities.

Onshore blocks in the volatile Niger Delta are the latest Shell assets put on offer as the oil major changes its focus to the offshore, writes David Slater

The Export-Import Bank of India has agreed two more loans totalling $144.44m to fund transmission and distribution infrastructure to evacuate power from the Katende and Kakobola dams being built by Angelique International Ltd (AIL) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.The letter of credit agreements were signed in Abidjan during the African Development Bank annual meetings on 28 May. One was for $109.94m for the evacuation of power from the 64MW Katende dam in Western Kasai, and the other for $34.5m for power distribution from the 9.3MW Kakobola dam.

Privately owned Algerian company Amimer Energie has won a contract to supply 40MW of diesel generation capacity to Energie du Mali (EDM), establishing it as a leading supplier of generators in the Sahel as well as in Algeria. On 20 February, Amimer chairman and chief executive Amar Boukheddami and his EDM counterpart Dramane Coulibaly signed the $70m deal to install 20MW plants in Kati, 15km north-west of Bamako, and the capital’s Dar Salam district.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (Nerc) is seeking expressions of interest from consultants to audit the accounts of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria successor companies as they await privatisation