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Total E&P Angola has given Fugro a three-year survey contract worth $26m to provide offshore positioning services and accurate navigation systems for Total E&P Angola’s drilling units, vessels and structures, together with onshore and offshore survey services. Fugro said the contract was a continuation of services supplied to Total E&P Angola under a similar contract since 2008.

Bowleven on 11 May announced the arrival of the Topaz Driller rig in Cameroonian waters from Singapore for a two-well appraisal drilling campaign on the Etinde licence for operator New Age (African Global Energy). The IM-6 well is expected to spud at the end of May to test the potential of the Intra Isongo play opened by the IM-5 well in 2012. The Topaz Driller has been contracted for 150 days.

Wärtsilä Corporation announced on 29 April that it had signed an operations and maintenance agreement with the 175MW Central Termica de Ressano Garcia plant. The Finnish company is supplying and installing 18 Wärtsilä 34SG engines to the plant, which is owned by Electricidade de Moçambique (51%) and South Africa’s Sasol New Energy (49%). Wärtsilä expects to complete installation work by May 2014. The plant will run on gas from the Sasol-operated Pande and Temane fields.

The Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity has contracted the state-owned Ethiopian Construction Design & Supervision Works Corporation to prepare feasibility studies and the design for the 150MW Wabi hydropower project in Welkite in the Gurage Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. Under the terms of the 22.3m birr ($810, 320) contract signed in early May, the studies are to be completed in 18 months.

The government is optimistic that a new mining bill will soon attract investment to help develop the country’s minerals potential and is drawing up model contracts and licences. Despite strong indications of high prospectivity for metals and minerals in South Sudan, a lack of data has meant that their potential has remained unrealised. But, according to senior officials at the Ministry of Energy and Mining....

President Xi Jingping’s call for China-Africa trade to exceed $400bn by 2020, with infrastructure investment a priority in driving that exponential increase, is a realistic target as ever more Chinese companies explore the continent’s markets. China Inc made a spectacular return to African business in the last decade, with bilateral trade rising from $10bn in 2000 to $210bn in 2013 – an increase many times greater than even optimists in the Beijing government had planned. Officials and company executives in Beijing often comment that things have not always gone as smoothly for China Inc as envious business rivals might think.

The Polarcus Adira vessel has begun acquiring a 2,603km2 3D seismic survey for Cairn Energy over the Sangomar, Sangomar Deep and Rufisque blocks. Partner FAR said the vessel would gather data in the north and east of the permits along trend from existing mapped prospects where there is no 3D seismic coverage. The survey will also help to delineate the SNE discovery. Cairn plans two appraisal wells and an exploration well, with drilling to start in early Q4.

Norway’s DNO has reported that the Chite-1 exploration well in the Inhaminga Block failed to find hydrocarbons.

The semisubmersible Transocean Marianas has been contracted by PetroSA for four wells starting in May. The rig, which can drill at depths of up to 9,100 metres, will be working at a day rate of $370,000 until March 2015, Transocean said in its latest fleet status report. The rig has been idle in Cape Town harbour since drilling three non-commercial wells offshore Namibia for Brazil’s HRT last year.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s El Merk project continues to aim for first production around the end of 2011

Despite governance shortfalls and a number of crises, President Filipe Nyusi’s government has reassured investors with its support for transformational LNG schemes, leading towards final investment decisions and financial close in the months to come. This is a major success for an African gas industry where smaller projects seem to be making more impact than the majority of big-ticket schemes. Mozambique’s progress reassured CbI Meetings’ 2-3 May Africa Investment Exchange: Gas event in London that the African industry can deliver world-scale projects.

Bill Brumbaugh’s Swiss Oil Holdings International has given up Lamu blocks L4

Libya’s oil and gas authorities now say their promised licensing round will launch in Q1 2014 at the earliest. While this has been interpreted in some quarters as a delay, it will require rapid progress on the drafting of a new hydrocarbons law and a model exploration and production-sharing agreement over the next six months. Speaking at an FDI Libya round table event in London on 18 June, deputy oil and gas minister Omar Shakmak said that the round would not be announced until year-end, meaning that it could take place early next year.

Tullow Oil has decided to exit the Norwegian Continental Shelf, selling its working interest in eight licences to Aker BP, and another four to Statoil. The Statoil transaction includes the Wisting discovery in the Barents Sea. BP Norge and Det Norske Oljeselskap completed a merger in September, creating Aker BP as a new independent company. Aker BP said the acquisition, which includes 15% in the Oda (previously known as Butch) discovery in PL 405, strengthens its position in core areas surrounding the Ula, North of Alvheim, Skarv and Krafla/Askja areas.

Has Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar overreached in his high-risk military advance on Tripoli? The dominant view is that he has erred politically by throwing everything into an all-or-nothing play for domination, and militarily by underestimating the difficulty of conquering the capital and the cohesiveness of local militias. The alternative view is that while military options remain open to him, there is no reason to compromise, especially with the militias who increasingly dominate and control the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). He may still have some advantage to gain.