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Veteran Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) leader Afonso Dhlakama’s surprise return to the bush in October 2012 was an unsettling reminder of the fragility of post-conflict Mozambique, as guerrilla roadblocks returned and coal exports were halted in the central region. Renamo’s rebellion was triggered by demands for a greater share of state jobs and resources. A peace agreement signed on 24 August 2014 promised jobs, above all in the army and police, and set a platform for campaigning to start for general elections on 15 October.

Despite governance shortfalls and a number of crises, President Filipe Nyusi’s government has reassured investors with its support for transformational LNG schemes, leading towards final investment decisions and financial close in the months to come. This is a major success for an African gas industry where smaller projects seem to be making more impact than the majority of big-ticket schemes. Mozambique’s progress reassured CbI Meetings’ 2-3 May Africa Investment Exchange: Gas event in London that the African industry can deliver world-scale projects.

The 22 January announcement that Globeleq and its partner IPS had reached financial close for the 253MW expansion of their 460MW Azito gas-fired plant at Yopougon, near Abidjan, was timed to coincide with a visit to London by an Ivorian delegation led by President Alassane Dramane Ouattara for the UK-Africa Summit. General Electric will provide gas turbine technology and services for the Phase IV project. The new and enlarged 20-year Azito concession agreement underscores Côte d’Ivoire’s ability to finance major private sector infrastructure projects.

Announcing job losses and investment cutbacks, Big Oil’s flagship companies are emitting signals that should be heeded by those African oil-producing governments that are less inclined to believe the world is changing to their disadvantage. Dramatic announcements of changes of strategic direction by BP, Eni, Royal Dutch Shell and Total suggest most majors see their futures as diversified energy companies, rather than old-style IOCs.

The global LNG market has been undermined just when ExxonMobil was expected to reach a final investment decision on its 15.2m t/yr Rovuma LNG scheme – the biggest of three projects aiming to channel at least $50bn of foreign investment (and possibly much more) into Mozambique over the next decade.The gas boom was expected to drive spectacular levels of economic growth, but while Mozambican economic planners and their allies contemplate the LNG project’s start-up being delayed possibly until 2030, the government is confronted with a burgeoning Islamist insurgency and huge economic pressures.

Chinese giants, sanctioned Russians, established operators and veterans from Cove Energy, the Irish independent which originated Mozambique's  historic gas play are amongst those competing for the highly prospective Rovuma basin blocks in the current licensing round. The range of players is a strong indicator of the high expectations for the next phase of upstream development. 

Despite calls from some governments for sub-Saharan Africa to use its natural gas resources and build more gas-to-power plants, it is hydroelectric power that will drive the biggest growth in electricity generation in the region over the next five years, according to analysis of African Energy Live Data’s project pipeline to 2027.

High inflation and a global energy crisis are forcing a rethink on how the world might make the transition from hydrocarbons to renewable energy. Until recently, rich-world policy-makers and think tanks had been pushing to electrify global energy demand as quickly as possible and in many parts of the world a de facto moratorium on new hydrocarbon projects had taken hold. But reports of the demise of gas have been greatly exaggerated.

African Union and European Union leaders met for the sixth EU-AU Summit in Brussels on 17-18 February, co-chaired by European Council president Charles Michel and AU’s Senegalese chairman President Macky Sall. It had been three years in the making – due to Covid and other delays – and, as with previous summits, there was talk of huge financial flows, boundless co-operation and commitments to a future of inclusive development.

The agreement for Senegal to become only the second African economy to secure a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) has the potential to salvage the climate financing framework’s credibility, which appeared to be flatlining.

Senegal is a relatively small economy with a reputation for competent, if sometimes flawed, governance of its limited resources. The prospect of an administration with a taste for joined-up government tapping recently identified offshore gas resources, and attracting investment in its abundant solar and wind resources, suggests that President Macky Sall’s Plan Sénégal Emergent strategy to achieve emerging market status by 2035 is not overblown.

Judging by the headlines, 2014 has been a significant year for improving electricity supply in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where only 290m of the 915m population has access and the total number without grid connections is still rising, according to the International Energy Agency. Several independent power projects (IPPs) have reached financial close, including Ghana’s long-awaited Cenpower deal; others are almost there – most notably Nigeria’s template-setting Azura-Edo IPP, whose impending completion was a focus for participants at the 24-25 November Africa Investment Exchange: Energy (AIX) meeting in London. Multilaterals and governments report progress in efforts to develop ‘transformational’ schemes including Grand Inga and strategic transmission projects.

Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz (Steg) has launched an international tender for the construction of a gas-fired power plant in Mornaguia in the northern governorate of Manouba, near Tunis. Bids for the project, which should comprise two industrial turbines with a gross capacity totalling 550-660MW at ISO baseload conditions, are due by 8 March. The power plant should be commissioned before the summer of 2020, according to the tender notice issued on 16 January. Steg seeks to sign a separate maintenance contract at the same time for 12 years from the expiry of the guarantee period of the equipment and infrastructure.

The rules governing a new mechanism for the international trading of carbon emission reduction credits is due to be agreed at the Bonn Climate Change Conference, which runs from 6-16 June in Germany. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – which has so far proved of limited value to Africa – is set to be replaced by Article 6 of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference’s Paris Agreement, which is intended to offer governments and project owners the potential to tap into a  new source of finance.

President Muhammadu Buhari finally responded to popular concerns over security by replacing his military top team on 26 January. With the economy hobbled by low oil prices and coronavirus, he has allowed a little more economic flexibility, although it remains to be seen whether his costly defence of the naira’s inflated value will be replaced by the foreign exchange market unification favoured by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.