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The Sirexe 2024 event has drawn senior officials to Abidjan, drawing commitments from Côte d’Ivoire to further develop its resources and energy industries

Italian major Eni has acquired exploration licences for four more offshore blocks in Côte d’Ivoire.  The deepwater exploration blocks all share borders with Block CI-205, where Eni and its partner Petroci Holding made the 1.5bn-barrel Calao discovery in March.

Côte d’Ivoire is pushing for a big upturn in renewable energy investment as a new event opens in Abidjan

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) awarded a $1.3m grant to Côte d’Ivoire (CdI)’s Ministry of Finance for a feasibility study to developed a power grid emergency control system for the state-owned utility Côte d’Ivoire Energies (CIE). USTDA said the system was “expected to be the first of its kind in Africa".

Increasing demand from the national grid and commercial consumers, climate volatility and a lack of gas feedstock have concentrated Ivorian officials’ focus on increasing renewable energy capacity, moving away from a longstanding reliance on hydroelectric and thermal generation. Already a vital player in the West African Power Pool, Côte d’Ivoire’s regional trading significance has been underlined by a $300m US grant, writes Marc Howard.

Côte d’Ivoire was an independent power production pioneer when Globeleq and partners commissioned the first phase of Azito GTP in 1999; it now supplies around one-quarter of CdI’s on-grid supply

Miners are proving an additional source of demand for utility Compagnie Ivoirienne d’Electricité (CIE), with two large gold projects recently opting for significant grid offtake instead of developing the large on-site commercial and industrial (C&I) power plants seen in other West African mining jurisdictions.

A small number of floating solar plants are already operating across Africa and over a dozen more are being planned. Advocates say the technology can not only generate power, but also expand the generation capacity of underperforming hydroelectric power reservoirs. As dams age and water becomes scarce, development finance institutions could a play critical role in funding the growth of a still-nascent technology, writes Tonderayi Mukeredzi.

Prospects for the regional electricity supply industry and West African power trading took a huge leap forward when two major networks interconnected at Linsan in Guinea. Much work remains to be done after the 2 April link-up, but the OMVG-CLSG interconnection points to a more positive direction of travel for a West African Power Pool that is starting to excite market interest.

Italian major Eni has announced a new find on Block CI-205, which it called the second-largest hydrocarbons discovery to date in Côte d’Ivoire, following its Baleine discovery in 2021.

Vaalco Energy’s purchase of Svenska Petroleum Exploration will give the US indie a 27.4% interest in Block CI-40, which holds the producing Baobab field offshore Côte d’Ivoire, in a deal that further reduces beleaguered Saudi-Ethiopian tycoon Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi’s business empire.

Robert Friedland’s High Power Exploration (HPX) plans to develop a rail line to take iron ore from its Nimba licence in south-eastern Guinea to a deep-water port at Didia in Liberia. It is the second major Mano River region iron ore rail announcement in recent months following the giant Simandou scheme, and promises to increase demand for electricity from Côte d’Ivoire’s hydroelectric plants.

Local conglomerate PFO Africa has signed a PPA for Côte d’Ivoire’s largest-ever solar development, near the northern city of Ferkessédougou.

An oversubscribed Eurobond issue in January indicated that Côte d’Ivoire’s strong economic performance – including 6.5% GDP growth, big infrastructure investments and Eni’s major Baleine oil and gas field – has been enough to allay investors’ concerns over the presidential succession and wider regional instability. These issues feature in the first of African Energy’s new series of Risk Management Reports (RMRs), which will provide updates, analysis and context on key political, social, economic and energy trends in countries across the continent. In line with the model established by African Energy’s sister publication Gulf States Newsletter (GSN), a ‘risk grade’ (explained below) is assigned to each country. A full list of African risk grades will follow soon.

Côte d’Ivoire’s three times oversubscribed $2.6bn dollar Eurobond issue underlines President Alassane Dramane Ouattara’s reputation for prudent economic management – a status that will add to pressures from supporters for ‘ADO’ to stand for a controversial fourth term – and offers some hope for under-pressure African borrowers who could benefit from renewed access to international capital markets and the relatively attractive interest rates CdI has secured.