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The Donors and Investors Conference for Madagascar held in Paris in December brought promises of investment worth $6.4bn to support the National Development Plan, which runs from 2015 to 2019, nearly $1bn more than the country was seeking. The World Bank Group promised $1bn in grants and concessional loans as well as $330m from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The African Development Bank and European Union are also significant donors, with the EU funding transmission lines and substations. The IFC is targeting investments in “agribusiness, infrastructure, especially renewable energy and transport, and finance”, said IFC regional director Oumar Seydi.

The long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill is no closer to becoming law as the various industry stakeholders expose the gulf in opinions over key areas such as tax rates and sanctity of contracts. And there are fears of further delays as the legislative process slows in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election, writes David Slater in Abuja

Seven months after GE submitted the winning bid for the supply of 8,400MW of gas turbines and other equipment to Sonelgaz subsidiary Société Algérienne de Production de l’Electricité (SPE), it has finally secured the contract. The complex deal, which includes a commitment to build factories to manufacture turbines and other equipment, was hailed by the utility as introducing “a new era of co-operation”. It cements GE’s dominant position in the Algerian power market, and demonstrates that, in this sector at least, the pressure from corruption investigations is not preventing all decision-making.

Tower Resources subsidiary Neptune Petroleum has plugged and abandoned a second well, Avivi-1, on its Block 5 at the northern end of the Albertine Graben, and is debating whether to enter the third exploration period.

The board of the African Development Bank (AfDB) on 18 July approved an €18m ($21m) financing package from its African Development Fund soft loans arm to support energy sector reform in Burkina Faso. The package will provide budget support to help the government put in place legal and regulatory structures that encourage investment into the sector.

In his State of the Nation address in Cape Town on 9 February, President Jacob Zuma unexpectedly announced that all power purchase agreements (PPAs) awarded to independent power producers (IPPs) would be signed. Eskom has been refusing to sign new PPAs with renewable energy IPPs since mid-2016, arguing that the power was no longer needed and that additional capacity would only increase tariffs for the consumer.“Eskom will sign the outstanding PPAs for renewable energy in line with the procured rounds,” Zuma said.

Total Gabon has begun redeveloping the Anguille field, which began producing in 1966, as part of a country-wide programme to appraise and redevelop existing fields to enhance recovery and slow down the natural decline in output.

Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) plans to import 200MW from the Southern African Power Pool for its mining customers to make up a supply shortfall after state power utility Zesco was forced to reduce power generation at its key hydro stations.On 1 June, Zesco started restricting power supply to non-mining customers, with some households and businesses facing power cuts of up to four hours a day.

Offshore oil and gas production is unaffected by the worsening crisis following the presidential election. Aberdeen-based DOF Subsea has just announced a £1m contract for inspection, repair and maintenance services at

Sonangol has awarded 11 blocks in a restricted bid round for pre-salt blocks in the Kwanza Basin. The round was never publicly announced and 13 companies were invited to bid. Sonangol will have an average 35% stake in each block, while the China

The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Small Business has prequalified 19 bidders to participate in the first round of its large wind and solar build-own-operate tenders. The bidders include a mix of established partnerships with a record of achievement in the region and a large number of market entrants with substantial experience of project development in other countries. As several of the candidates are consortia with up to three members, a total of 32 companies are involved.

Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group Inc and Genoa-based Ansaldo Energia on 18 November announced that they had been awarded a contract to design and build a 420MW gas-fired combined cycle thermal power plant at Sousse, by Tunisian utility Société Tunisienne de l’Eléctricité et du Gaz (Steg) .

Royal Air Maroc’s daily flight from Casablanca to Conakry is packed as Guineans return home and business travellers arrive, including Moroccans meeting King Mohammed VI’s call to expand the kingdom’s commercial footprint south of the Sahara. The airline’s expansion to make Casablanca a major African transport hub is part of a wider strategy that has seen the big three Moroccan banks – Attijariwafa Bank, BMCE Bank of Africa and Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) – buying up African assets, phosphate giant OCP Group investing in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and plans for a gas pipeline linking Nigeria to the Mediterranean coast.

Rio Tinto’s $3bn writedown from its Mozambique coal project offers a timely reminder of the infrastructure challenges of developing big projects in frontier countries. Rio Tinto bought Australia’s Riversdale Mining for $3.7bn in 2011, when other big mining companies were more cautious about bidding because of concerns about how to export the coal.

Polish businessman Jan Kulczyk has sold his 8% stake in Ophir Energy as the company approaches the development stage on two big projects. Founding shareholder Kulczyk sold 56.6m shares on 28 April at 140p/share, well below the 250p price at which the stock launched in 2011. Ophir plans to develop 3.4tcf of gas on Equatorial Guinea Block R via a floating liquefied natural gas development, but says it will need to bring in a partner before a final investment decision.