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Norwegian activities in African upstream

The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company is requesting expressions of interest from consultants to develop a network master plan for the country. The project is being funded by a grant from the African Development Bank. The consultant will produce a least-cost network expansion plan covering a 20-year period. Bids are due by 30 April 2019. Contact: Procurement manager, ZETDC Electricity Centre Building 2nd Floor, 25 Samora Machel Avenue, PO Box 377, Harare, Zimbabwe. Tel: +23 47 74598; Email: [email protected].

Seychelles Petroleum Company (Seypec) has invested A$2.08m ($2.2m) in Australia’s WHL Energy, which recently acquired exploration acreage in the archipelago.

The Senegal River Basin Development Organisation (OMVS) is pressing ahead with the 300MW Koukoutamba hydro scheme on the Bafing River, which will cost an estimated $800m to develop. Koukoutamba is the first of three dams planned for the river, to be followed by the 160MW Bouréyah and 140MW Falayah schemes.It will be the biggest dam developed by the OMVS, which also developed the 200MW Manantali dam in Mali, the Diama dam which supplies water to Nouakchott and Dakar, and the 60MW Felou dam inaugurated in 2013.

AIM-listed Madagascar Oil has resolved outstanding issues with the government over exploration blocks 3105, 3106 and 3107

London-based Panoro Energy signed a sale and purchase agreement on 28 June for the acquisition of DNO Tunisia from Norway’s DNO ASA, while Petrofac announced the sale of its 45% interest in the Chergui licence to Perenco. Panoro will acquire an 87.5% interest and the operatorship of the Sfax Offshore Exploration Permit and Ras El Besh Concession, and a 46% stake in the Hammamet Offshore Exploration Permit operated by Medco. No cash will change hands up front; Oslo-listed Panoro concurrently raised $8.3m via a private share placement.

Rakgas has given Bell Geospace a contract to acquire just under 15,000 line km of airborne survey data in Zanzibar. The contract includes the acquisition of 3D full-tensor gradiometry (FTG) data as well as processing and interpretative services. Flights started on 14 March from Abeid Karume international airport in Zanzibar. Rakgas operates the Pemba Zanzibar Block, which surrounds the island

Tower Resources has given DMT Petrologic a contract to reprocess the 3D seismic data over and around the Thali licence in the Rio del Rey Basin. The contract, awarded following a competitive tender, involves merging and reprocessing data from five existing surveys to cover an area of approximately 500km2, including the entire Thali Block and the surrounding area, covering three discovery wells on the block itself and additional key wells to provide further data control.

After the failure of successive ministers to increase Nigeria’s generation capacity to meet targets, missing out on the 6,000MW capacity increase expected by end-2008 and again in 2009, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is taking on the portfolio himself until a new

Cairn Energy has announced that Sir Bill Gammell will retire as non-executive chairman at the annual general meeting on 15 May. He will be succeeded by Ian Tyler, who joined the board as a non-executive director in June 2013. Tyler was chief executive of Balfour Beatty from 2005 until March 2013, and holds a number of other non-executive positions including non-executive chairman of Al Noor Hospitals Group and Bovis Homes Group, and non-executive director of Cable & Wireless Communications and BAE Systems.

Total has pulled out of the Eni-operated offshore Block 15/06, selling its 15% stake to Sonangol E&P for $750m. “The sale of our interest in Block 15/06 is in line with Total’s global strategy to actively manage its portfolio and focus its investment capability on core assets in which it has more material interests, such as Block 17 with the CLOV project currently under development and the future development of Kaombo on Block 32 in Angola,” said senior vice-president Africa Total Exploration and Production Jacques Marraud des Grottes.

The third and final turbine of the 275MW Soubré hydro development is due to start up in October, bringing the country’s installed capacity to 2,269MW. A commissioning ceremony was held in June for the plant at Naoua Falls, on the Sassandra River in the south-western Nawa region. State utility CI-Energies will own and operate the plant, which was built by Sinohydro with financing from the Export-Import Bank of China. The first two turbines have capacity of 90MW, while the third is 95MW.

Standard & Poor’s has affirmed its B+ long-term and B short-term sovereign credit ratings, with a negative outlook, placing Senegal’s country risk on a similar level to Ghana, Cape Verde and Kenya.

AIM-listed Tower Resources signed a production-sharing contract (PSC) on 15 September for the shallow-water Thali Block in the Rio del Rey Basin. Tower has a 100% interest in the block, which was formerly known as Dissoni and licensed to Total and Pecten. The work programme for the initial exploration period of three years calls for geological and geophysical studies, 100km2 of 3D seismic acquisition and a commitment well with a minimum financial commitment of $13m. Two optional renewal periods of two years will each require an exploration or appraisal well with a minimum $5m commitment.

APR Energy on 1 July announced it had signed a contract to supply 40MW to Mali from a power plant it will establish in Senegal. The agreement is the first cross-border deal the US company has signed but follows two contracts signed by Aggreko that use the Southern African Power Pool network to facilitate cross-border power transmission. In this case, the APR power plant will feed into the Senegal River Basin Development Authority (OMVS) grid connecting Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.