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CAMEROON: US bauxite miner seeks power; EGYPT: Ain Sokhna financing; KENYA: Wind map tender; KENYA: Wind turbine tender; MOZAMBIQUE: Coal India wins concessions on two blocks; RWANDA/BURUNDI: Interconnection loan; SOUTH AFRICA: Alstom contract for Koeberg; ZAMBIA: Kariba North construction launched

UK-based private equity investor Actis has bought AES Corporation’s Cameroon power assets for $220m. The investment gives Actis a 56% stake in Société Nationale d’Electricité (Sonel), and in the 216MW Kribi combined cycle gas turbine power plant and the 85MW Dibamba heavy fuel oil plant. While Actis will manage Sonel directly, Globeleq, its private power company, will operate Kribi and Dibamba. The investment is part of Actis’ Energy 3 Fund, which launched in April this year and has raised $750m to target power assets in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Sasol Petroleum International is expanding gas production from Mozambique, where the central processing facility produces 300mcf/d from the Pande and Temane fields, and a $500m expansion is under way

Trinity Energy plans a 40,000-b/d refinery in the oil hub of Paloich in the Upper Nile region. The project will cost $250m-$300m and produce 2m t/yr of petroleum products, Trinity co-founder and director Richard Raja told African Energy. South Sudan currently has no refinery, although several projects have come and gone since independence. Speaking to African Energy at the Africa Oil & Power conference in London on 17 June, Raja said financing was close to completion.

Cameroon can be a frustrating place to do business. Industry players complain of political appointments to key posts – privatised utility AES Sonel’s new deputy managing director Jean-Jacques Ledru is a presidential appointee – and a slow pace of negotiations. Anger at rising fuel and food costs spilled over into riots last month in which 17 people were killed, and President Paul Biya’s plans to amend the constitution to allow him to seek another seven-year term of office have dismayed many Cameroonians hoping for change.

BURKINA FASO: Boad credits for power expansion; EGYPT: Alstom to supply management system; EGYPT: CSP only for Kom Ombo project; EGYPT: Kureimat solar-thermal near to commissioning; GHANA/COTE D’IVOIRE: Interconnection studies awarded; KENYA: Drought hits profits at KenGen; MOROCCO: Bid opening beckons for Safi IPP; MOROCCO: Coal contract for Jerrada; SOUTH AFRICA: Alstom contract for Kusile; TUNISIA: EIB funds for transmission

Personalities remain a key factor in shaping a continent trying to emerge from lost decades of ‘big man’ politics. While the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) made much of efforts to create a post-conflict ‘developmental state’ in the last two decades, modern Ethiopia was fashioned in the image of the late Meles Zenawi, who harnessed an intolerant, Tigrayan-dominated political system to a rigid but fast-growing (if unbalanced) economy.

Following the success of its investment in Ugandan electricity distributor Umeme and ahead of the launch of its next African energy-focused investment fund, UK private equity investor Actis Capital has moved to buy Veolia Environnement’s water, wastewater and electricity services concessions in Rabat, operated by the French group’s concession company Redal, and its Amendis subsidiary’s operations in Tangier and Tetouan.

Société Algérienne de Production de l’Electricite (SPE) has invited bids to build a 500-600MW gas-fired power plant in the Hassi Messaoud area, in the latest of a string of Sonelgaz Holding generation construction tenders for new capacity to be built on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis.

The often murky world of products trading has sucked in the former freedom fighters of Namibia’s ruling party, with a power struggle between rival factions for control of Namcor, writes Our Windhoek Correspondent

Ministers from Uganda and Tanzania have met for talks aimed at advancing the East African crude oil pipeline project, which has made little progress since its formal launch in August 2017.The 25 January meeting agreed that a host government agreement for the project should be signed by the end of June detailing the rights and obligations of the parties – the two governments and the upstream partners Total, CNOOC and Tullow Oil.

President Yoweri Museveni has carried out a major cabinet shuffle, moving Daudi Migereko from energy and minerals, and giving the finance portfolio to ultra-loyalist Syda Bbumba, a former energy minister and an economist by training.

The World Bank Group’s (WBG) International Development Association (IDA) on 26 April approved a $180m guarantee for national utility Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen). The guarantee, which will last for 15 years, is intended to support KenGen in raising up to $300m in long-term commercial debt during 2018-19. This will be used to refinance a costly portion of KenGen’s existing debt.KenGen is expected to play a major role in Kenya’s new-build programme and it must reduce its debt service obligations to finance new projects.

US oil industry lobbying groups have filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking to overturn new transparency legislation

Zesco has set up a team headed by cabinet secretary Roland Msiska to implement proposed reforms to the utility, though concrete action is unlikely until after the 2021 presidential and general elections. The cabinet commissioned a diagnostic study in 2017 which made a list of recommendations.A source at the Ministry of Energy said the study recommended that Zesco be split into separate generation, transmission and distribution units. The report also called on the government to rein in Zesco’s wage bill, which absorbs 65% of revenues.