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China National Petroleum Corporation has signed three new agreements with the government: a memorandum of understanding on the Khartoum refinery’s second-phase expansion, advance payment for crude trading and an agreement to swap equity between CNPC’s Block 6 and Petronas’s Block 5A (see Upstream industry pointers).

The authorities have overruled a complaint by MAN Diesel and given the Kipevu III contract to low bidder Wärtsilä, paving the way for 120MW of additional power to come on stream by end-2010, writes Kimemia Mugo

Det Norske Veritas on 3 December announced it had taken over French safety and environmental risk management services provider Sof Conseil, creating “an important base for growing the French and North African energy market”, according to DNV chief operating officer Remi Eriksen.

Eskom has scaled back its tariff increase request to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) and announced further project delays as a consequence of scaling down its finance projections.

The noise surrounding the release of Simon Mann and other ‘Wonga coup’ mercenaries and the subsequent publication by advocacy group Global Witness of a report citing United States Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents on the illicit dealings of favoured presidential son Teodoro (Teodorín) Nguema Obiang Mangue have done little to ruffle the feathers

The European Investment Bank is lining up a €35m loan for Communauté Electrique du Bénin to build 308km of 161kV lines and refurbish a further 289km of 161kV lines and eight substations. Appraisal is under way for a loan seen as necessary to avoid major power supply disruptions and to extend the reach and quality of transmission infrastructure in Benin and neighbouring Togo.

The European Investment Bank is lining up a €35m loan for Communauté Electrique du Bénin to build 308km of 161kV lines and refurbish a further 289km of 161kV lines and eight substations. Appraisal is under way for a loan seen as necessary to avoid major power supply disruptions and to extend the reach and quality of transmission infrastructure in Benin and neighbouring Togo.

Recent exploration success has buoyed interest in the African oil and gas sector, where funding can still be found for the right deal despite the credit crunch. Typical of the mood, London-based Stellar Energy Advisors reports that its upstream asset marketing business has had a record year, fuelled by strong activity in Africa.

Legislation currently before parliament aims to bring greater clarity to a licensing process regarded as opaque and overly dependent on the president, writes Jon Marks, recently in Kinshasa

Two months after his unexpected resignation, Dr Shukri Ghanem has returned to his old job as chairman of National Oil Corporation (NOC) (AE 170/1). But although international oil companies and other foreign participants in Libya’s energy sector may draw some comfort from this equally sudden victory for the Jamahiriya’s liberalising tendency, it is far from clear that business is about to get easier.

ExxonMobil’s $4bn offer for Kosmos Energy’s stake in the Jubilee field has exposed major faultlines in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government’s energy strategy. A faction within the ruling party is determined not to let the western supermajors get a stake in the potential 1.8bn bbl field, and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC ) wants a slice

Rwanda has come out as the world’s top regulatory reformer in the International Finance Corporation and World Bank report Doing Business 2010: Reforming Through Difficult Times.

There is much to learn from the often sorry experience of resource-rich countries, especially as governance activists and other lobbies mobilise to influence the prospects for building transparent industries in the newest West African energy frontiers – in the hope that, this time, they can implement oil and gas developments that bring real benefits to their host populations, rather than merely inflating the fortunes of predatory elites.

Central Bank of Nigeria governor Lamido Sanusi’s crackdown on five prominent banks over alleged abuses, including ramping up share prices and building non-performing loans on transactions involving ‘big men’ cronies, has brought a much-need reality check to the sector.

Nearly a decade of quiet British diplomacy and adroit Libyan manoeuvring left Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill with no realistic option but to return convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Ali Mohammed Al-Megrahi to Libya. Any alternative would have thrown into question the whole logic of rapprochement with Libya – one of the UK’s few notable international triumphs of recent years.