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Procurement for the $75m Ghana electricity distribution system reinforcement and expansion project funded by the African Development Bank will begin in October. The project has three components: reinforcement and extension of the distribution system, off-grid renewable energy electrification, and institutional development and capacity building.

The Ministry of Power has signed an agreement with India’s Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) for the development of off-grid solar independent power projects across several locations, with the first to be in Bida, Niger State.

Dubai-based temporary power provider Altaaqa Global CAT Rental Power has opened a branch office in Nairobi to serve the East Africa region. “The business activities in the East Africa region are flourishing and the economy has been thriving throughout recent years, resulting in an increased demand for power,” said general manager Peter den Boogert. “With the combined fleet of our sister company in Saudi Arabia, Altaaqa Global has approximately 1,400MW of rental power readily available so that we can focus our efforts on rapid deployment and customer satisfaction.”

There is a sense of relief among the South African business classes that President Jacob Zuma has appointed long-serving finance minister Trevor Manuel to a potentially critical job in his big new government. A court’s decision crushing the highly politicised trade union-led opposition to SA’s biggest listing in years, of telecoms giant Vodacom,

The global campaign to provide vulnerable and marginalised communities with sustainable and affordable energy has gained considerable momentum in the past decade. The Africa-EU Energy Partnership’s target of giving electricity access to 100m more Africans by 2020, set in 2010, was exceeded by mid-decade. The United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative should achieve its target of pulling 1bn people worldwide out of energy poverty by 2030; some 500m of these people live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ocean Installer has been awarded a contract for development work on the Aje field in OML 113 by Folawiyo Aje Services Limited. Ocean Installer will perform the offshore construction of the Aje Phase 1 project, including mooring buoy installation and hook-up, flowline and umbilical installation. Folawiyo Aje Services is technical adviser to field operator Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum. Offshore operations will be performed by the construction support vessel Normand Vision starting in Q1 2016.

China Railway International Group has said that construction of a 132kV transmission line from the Société de Raffinage de Zinder (Soraz) refinery to Zinder, Maradi and Malbaza will be finished in three months. The Chinese company is building the line under a contract awarded by Société Nigérienne d’Electricité (Nigelec). The line is intended to take surplus power from the refinery and supply it to the Nouvelle Cimenterie du Niger cement plant which is being built at Malbaza. The transmission project is being financed with a $73.3m concessional loan from the Export-Import Bank of China signed in November 2013.

Kosmos Energy has appointed Andrew Inglis as board chairman and chief executive with effect from 1 March, enabling current chief executive Brian Maxted to focus on his exploration role. Maxted, a founding partner of Kosmos, will serve as chief exploration officer and remain on the board, while current board chairman John Kemp will retire. Inglis joined Petrofac in January 2011 after 30 years with BP, most recently as chief executive of its exploration and production business.

Amid growing interest in West Africa’s untapped potential, Bergen Oilfield Services (BOS) is to acquire a big multi-client 2D seismic survey extending from Senegal to Guinea.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s Barquentine well has made another gas find in Offshore Area 1 of the Rovuma Basin

The past four years have been a period of intense frustration for National Oil Corporation (NOC) and its international partners as persistent violence and political mayhem have cut oil production to one-quarter of the 1.6m b/d maximum and made it impossible to implement exploration and development plans. NOC’s inability to make progress on a practical level has not stopped it from working up new investment schemes, which it has presented to international oil companies (IOCs) in increasing detail over the past several years.

Mauritania’s early August coup was widely seen as a setback for democracy in Africa and a reminder of the difficulty of developing robust state structures in fragile nations that are prone to economic disappointments, unresolved social cleavages and grasping elite power-brokers.

Prime minister Jose Maria Neves inaugurated the 22MW expansion of the Palmarejo power plant on 1 March. The project added two 11MW diesel generator sets to the 25MW facility and a high-voltage transmission line connecting Palmarejo and Calheta at a cost of €52m ($67m). Three new substations were also built.

Erin Energy Corporation has announced the resignation of chief executive Segum Omidele after less than a year in the post. The company, formerly Camac Energy, gave no explanation for the move. Senior vice-president, general counsel and secretary Jean-Michel Malek will serve as interim chief executive with effect from 22 February, while the board seeks a permanent replacement. Omidele served in various positions with the company from September 2011 and was chief operating officer from September 2015 until his appointment as chief executive in May 2016.

General Electric’s Angolan partner AE Energia has delivered three 28MW turbines to the Quileva thermal power plant in Lobito to increase its capacity to 215MW. The TM 2500 turbines, which were manufactured at a GE plant in Hungary, will undergo testing before being connected to the grid. The Ministry of Energy and Water said the increased generation capacity aims to improve supply to the cities of Benguela, Lobito, Catumbela and Baía Farta.