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President Idriss Déby Itno on 4 April formally launched construction of a 36m litre capacity fuel storage depot close to the Djermaya refinery. The Société Nationale des Dépôts Pétroliers, to be built by French company Parlym International, aims to create a strategic reserve to improve security of supply. The CFA12.9bn ($23m) development cost will be met by Société des Hydrocarbures du Tchad (SHT) with financing from Douala-based Commercial Bank Group’s Cameroon and Chad operations.

The World Bank is considering a $585.4m loan for the 1,950MW Helwan South power project, to be built at Helwan, south of Cairo. The $2.4bn project entails construction of a supercritical steam power plant, a 93km pipeline connecting the power plant to the gas transmission network at Dahshur, and a 65km pipeline to take gas from producing fields to the plant.

Eni and Anadarko signed a heads of agreement on 21 December establishing basic principles for the coordinated development of common natural gas reservoirs offshore Mozambique. The two companies will jointly plan and construct common onshore LNG liquefaction facilities in the northern Cabo Delgado Province, and Anadarko has given CB&I’s joint venture with Chiyoda Corporation a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for an onshore gas liquefaction facility.

The approval of winning bidders for the privatisation of generation and distribution companies was a step forward for Nigeria’s electricity industry, but the subsequent stripping of Manitoba Hydro’s transmission management contract could represent two steps back. The creation of a new Nigerian industry may yet beckon, but allegations of cronyism, if not outright corruption, in some concession areas can only add to the mood of never-ending crisis, write David Slater and Jon Marks.

There have been some positive signs for the sub-Saharan electricity supply industry. A few new developers have arrived on the scene, and some familiar faces, such as AES Corporation, are looking again for big deals, suggesting that more investment could be attracted to the sector. There are signs of

Its status is still unrecognised by the international community, and major IOCs who declared force majeure after the 1991 civil war still hold claims to their licences, but Somaliland’s exploration programme is attracting considerable interest from minnows, writes Nadine Marroushi.

Faced with the embarrassing fact that just two countries met the 9 March validation deadline, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has delayed a decision on what it should do with the other candidates until next month’s board meeting in Berlin.

The Energy Regulation Board has approved a tariff increase of 75% for all customer categories except mining and exports. The increase will be implemented in two phases, with an initial 50% effective on 15 May 2017 and a further 25% on 1 September. The government has come under pressure to end subsidies and move to cost-reflective tariffs as Zambia battles a widening fiscal deficit. Zesco requested the tariff increase in March.

The 5MW Outapi solar photovoltaic project is beginning connection testing this month with commercial operations to begin soon after, local impact investor and project founder Camelthorn Business Ventures told African Energy. The project was one of 14 renewable energy independent power producers with combined capacity of 70MW selected through the country’s interim feed-in tariff programme in 2015.

In contrast to South Africa, where the government has managed to cool tempers inflamed after announcements that IPP tariffs might be renegotiated, officials in Ghana appear to be fanning the flames. IPPs are being pushed to renegotiate the terms of contracts at the same time as arrears from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) are growing. One financier involved with several projects told African Energy that talks were under way between IPPs and the Ministry of Finance to resolve arrears without liquidity support facilities having to be drawn.

Surestream Petroleum has given the UK’s WGP Exploration a contract to convert a former United Nations fisheries vessel to carry out 2D acquisition on Lake Tanganyika.

The award by Groupement Reggane of a $970m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Petrofac to build the gas-gathering, treatment and export facilities package at the Reggane North development means that a trio of projects are now fully under way in the south-west region, which is the country’s largest new zone for future gas production. Spain’s Técnicas Reunidas is building gas production facilities at Touat for GDF Suez which are scheduled to enter production in late 2016. Both Reggane and Total’s Timmimoun development, which is being built by Korea’s Samsung Engineering, will be completed in mid-2017.

The 8.8MW Mainland independent power project was commissioned on 30 October by Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola. Developed through a public/private partnership between the state government and a consortium of Mainland Power, CET Power and Solad Electric, the plant operates using 5.8MW powered by natural gas and 3MW standby using diesel. It will supply a number of institutional buildings including Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and Area F Police Command, as well as 20km of street lighting. There will be the possibility of transferring ownership to the state government after ten years of operation; there is also an option to expand generation to 25MW.

Africa Oil Corporation will go it alone with the acquisition of Petrobras’ Nigerian assets after Delonex Energy and Vitol announced they were withdrawing from the transaction. The companies signed an agreement in October 2018 to acquire 50% of the share capital of Petrobras Oil and Gas BV, which owns an indirect 8% interest in Chevron’s Agbami field and an indirect 16% interest in Total’s Akpo and Egina fields.

A consortium of GE International and Greek contractor Metka has signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Sonelgaz subsidiary Société Algérienne de Production de l’Electricité (SPE) to build an open-cycle gas-fired power plant in Hassi R’mel. The plant will have an available capacity of around 368MW and is expected to be finished within 30 months. The value of Metka’s portion of the contract is €93m ($120m), denominated in euros and Algerian dinars. The agreement is unrelated to GE’s delayed deal with Sonelgaz to supply 8,400MW of turbines.