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Delays to Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC)’s fourth offshore licensing round are due to “some technical and housekeeping reasons”, according to TPDC officials. But delays in shaping policy are weighing on operational issues, and best guess, TPDC managing director Yona Killagane said in early September, is that the round will be “pushed up to November 2012 at the earliest, if the parliament approves a new natural gas policy in its October session”.

Sonatrach president and chief executive Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour has accelerated the national refinery development programme with the issue of an engineering, procurement and construction tender to build a new refinery in Hassi Messaoud. In a more surprising move, Sonatrach has also been linked to the purchase of a refinery in Italy as it rethinks its long-term strategy.The Hassi Messaoud tender is intended to underpin government plans to make Algeria more self-sufficient at a time when the cost of fuel and other imports has put heavy pressure on the balance of payments.

ExxonMobil has expanded its presence in the Walvis Basin by signing agreements for four new blocks adjacent to the maritime border with Angola. The company announced on 24 April that it had signed an agreement with the government and the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) for blocks 1710 and 1810, and farm-in agreements with Namcor for blocks 1711 and 1811A.The blocks extend from the shoreline to about 215km offshore in water depths of up to 4,000 metres.

The African Development Bank board has approved a loan and grant totalling $16.66m for the Conakry Electricity Network Rehabilitation and Extension Project (Prerec2). The project will help to improve the governance and commercial management of Electricité de Guinée (EDG), to support the government’s efforts to reform the sector, and to extend the electricity distribution network to 12 neighbourhoods in the Ratoma and Matoto municipalities in Conakry. The project is a follow-up to Prerec1, which the bank said had significantly improved power supply to 30 other neighbourhoods in the same municipalities.

Unit 3 of the Ingula pumped storage scheme in KwaZulu-Natal was synchronised to the grid on 6 March, adding 333MW of capacity. Public enterprises minister Lynne Brown told reporters the additional power would allow Eskom to continue with its maintenance programme and reduce the pressure on the power grid. Commissioning of all four units is scheduled for completion in January 2017.

Denmark’s Maersk Oil has announced plans to close its Houston office and reduce its Luanda team to try to reduce capital expenditure and improve returns from the unsanctioned Chissonga project. Maersk said options included a future project developed jointly with other hydrocarbon discoveries in the same region. “Chissonga, like many deep-water projects in our industry, remains economically challenged in the current market environment. Maersk Oil remains committed to the Chissonga project and we have evaluated multiple options to commercialise these resources in the best interests of our partners and the Angolan authorities.

The heads of two companies involved in the Independent Power Tanzania Ltd (IPTL) power plant saga are jointly facing charges of economic sabotage, forgery, impersonation, running a criminal syndicate, obtaining money by false pretence, and causing loss of money to the government.Pan Africa Power Solutions chairman Harbinder Singh Sethi and VIP Engineering managing director James Rugemalira appeared in Kisutu Resident Magistrates’ Court in Dar es Salaam on 19 June to hear the charges

The government of Somaliland has announced a production sharing contract (PSC) with Norway’s DNO International for onshore Block SL18. The PSC was signed by Somaliland president Ahmed Mohamoud Silanyo and DNO International executive chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani. DNO has initiated studies on the 12,000km2 block ahead of a seismic programme planned for 2014. Genel Energy and Ophir Energy already have acreage in the self-declared republic, while DNO has acreage across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.

New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd (NZOG) has made a first foray outside its home area with the Diodore permit in the Gulf of Gabes. Chief executive David Salisbury, who travelled to Tunis for the signing ceremony, said NZOG had been assessing opportunities in Tunisia since 2008

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and Tullow Oil plc will be able to explore the same play as their Sierra Leone find offshore Liberia, where the government plans a bid round for the unlicensed Blocks 1-5, to be followed by licensing of the ultra-deep.

Foxtrot International has completed a four-year, $850m field development programme, significantly raising output from Block CI-27. Oslo-listed RAK Petroleum said two new gas fields, Marlin and Manta, have been brought on stream following the installation of a four-legged, manned platform and related processing and pipeline facilities and the drilling of one exploration and seven production wells. Gas production from CI-27 climbed to an average of 170mcf/d in August 2016, constituting more than three-quarters of Côte d’Ivoire’s total. Production of oil and condensates from the block averaged 3,000 b/d.

Russia’s Lukoil has spudded a deep-water well on the Savannah prospect on Block SL-5-11, using the Eirik Raude rig. The well, which spudded on 12 September, will be drilled to more than 4,700 metres, in water depths exceeding 2,000 metres. Lukoil took over as block operator in June 2011, alongside Nigeria’s Oranto Petroleum, and PanAtlantic Energy, the successor company to Vanco Energy Company.

Kpong hydro rehabilitation; Power sector reform; AFD backs solar power; New units for Kainji

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE) and the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) have signed a financing package for the 120MW Khalladi wind farm near Tangier – the first project to be supported by the EBRD’s new $250m fund for renewable generation in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. The EBRD and BMCE are providing E126m ($143m) to US-based developer UPC Renewables for the wind farm’s construction, operation and maintenance. The developer group comprises Saudi-based Acwa Power Global Services, UPC and investment fund Arif, managed by Infra Invest.

Total on 15 March announced the start of production from the 100,000 b/d Moho Nord deep offshore project, 75km from Pointe-Noire. The development, launched in 2013, comprises 34 wells tied back to a new tension leg platform, the first for Total in Africa, and to the new Likouf floating production unit. The oil is processed on Likouf and exported by pipeline to Total’s Djeno onshore terminal. Total operates the project with a 53.5% interest.