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Commodity trading giant Vitol is setting up a joint venture with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (Nsia) to invest in carbon reduction and offsetting programmes. Nsia chief executive Uche Orji said the new venture would provide “an enabling platform to trade carbon credits”.

Zambia’s state power utility Zesco and Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) have signed a 13-year bulk supply agreement (BSA), bringing to a close a two-year gap since the expiry of the previous arrangement and potentially ending a period of tension between the two bodies.

The completion by Norway’s PetroNor E&P of the acquisition of Panoro’s minority stake in Offshore Mining Lease (OML) 113 in offshore Nigeria in mid-July has paved the way for the commercialisation of a gas field that is estimated to have reserves of 1.1tcf.

Houston-based independent Vaalco Energy is to acquire Canada’s TransGlobe in an all-share transaction valued at $307m, creating a larger Africa-focused independent exploration and production company.

The extent that markets have shifted since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has been underlined by a surge of energy diplomacy in recent weeks. Complex security issues were integral to United States President Joe Biden’s mid-July fist bump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al-Saud, but an effort to reduce oil prices was the real agenda-setter.

Vivo Energy has completed the Nampala mine solar and battery plant project in Mali for Robex Resources and has signed an agreement for work at the Kiniéro goal mine in Guinea, operated by Sycamore Mining, which Robex is taking over.

The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) offers several potential markets using a battery: the day-ahead market where power is traded in hourly slots; intra-day which is also hourly and operates two hours in advance; and a new balancing market which is an hour ahead for 15-minute intervals.

Long-term supply agreements have, to some extent, insulated the biggest battery manufacturers from commodity price inflation. However, price increases have been so extreme that some suppliers have threatened to pay termination penalties to get out of contracts if costs can’t be renegotiated.

The Muela hydroelectric power (HEP) station is being rehabilitated after one of its three 24MW turbines developed a fault and caused all three to be shut down on 16 July.

TotalEnergies announced the start of production from the shallow-water Ikike field on 25 July. The French major is the operator of OML 99, with a 40% interest, alongside Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC, 60%).

Aqua Power in late July lost a legal challenge to the award of an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the 185MW Kinyerezi I gas power plant to CSI Energy Group (Tanzania). The contract was awarded by Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco) in November 2020.

Eni chairman Claudio Descalzi announced on 2 August that the Italian major expected to export nearly 4.5bn t/yr of natural gas from Republic of Congo (RoC) by 2025, with exports starting in Q4 2023, following the latest of his many meetings with President Denis Sassou N’Guesso.

Global infrastructure investor Actis is unusually busy in its energy-focused business in Africa. At end-July it announced the acquisition of Dubai-based Yellow Door Energy, a developer of commercial and industrial (C&I) projects in Africa and the Middle East.

Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX)-listed Tenaz Energy Corporation has pulled out of its takeover of SDX Energy after only 20.2% of the London AIM-listed firm’s shareholders voted in favour of the deal. In further corporate manoeuvres, Egypt-Morocco-focused SDX has lined up a new anchor investor, Aleph Commodities, with which it is working on a “refreshed and ambitious strategy”.

Morocco plans to promote a project to develop an electric vehicle (EV) battery plant, to be integrated with the kingdom’s existing vehicle manufacturing industry including Renault and Citroen manufacturing plants.