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Dangote Cement Zambia has agreed to start selling power to Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) to help the mining sector manage power shortages affecting Africa’s second biggest copper producer. As part of its $500m investment in Zambia’s biggest cement manufacturing plant, which came on stream in 2015, Dangote built a 30MW predominantly coal-fired thermal power plant to guarantee steady power supply. Dangote buys coal from Nava Bharat Ventures’ wholly owned Maamba Collieries Limited, whose 300MW mine-mouth power plant is the biggest in Zambia.

The move by the eight-member Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (Uemoa) to end its 55-year-old currency union based on the French-guaranteed CFA franc will have a range of consequences for businesses and political relations. The new eco currency, whose creation was formally announced in Abidjan on 21 December by President Alassane Dramane Ouattara and the visiting French president, Emmanuel Macron, includes some major changes, notably ending control over franc zone institutions by the Banque de France and reducing the guarantee of the French state.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) registered a 38% fall in net profit to $25.8m for the six months to December 2007, despite an 8.2% rise to $86m in production revenue.

Energy minister Thierry Tanoh is manoeuvring to strengthen his position, after threatening to resign this summer following deep differences with influential presidential adviser Adama Toungara. Tanoh has stayed in President Alassane Ouattara’s ruling coalition despite his affiliation to the once all-powerful PDCI, which has pulled out of government.

The 2014-2019 five-year plan approved by parliament on14 April lists five new dams as development priorities to support the government’s strategic objective of increasing access to energy. The plan includes the first phase of the 1,500MW Mphanda Nkuwa dam and the 1,245MW Cahora Bassa North, 612MW Lupata and 210MW Boroma dams on the Zambezi River, and the 60MW Alto Malema dam on the Lúrio River in northern Nampula Province. The five dams represent a combined investment of about $7bn. The projects are at varying stages of development.

The Kandadji irrigation and hydropower project on the Niger River, 180km north-west of Niamey, was launched in 2008 with an initial target completion date of 2017. The scheme forms part of a wider programme under the supervision of the High Commission for the Development of the Niger Valley (HCAVN), which aims to improve water supply for agriculture and reduce seasonal variations in the flow of the river. The dam construction contract was initially awarded to Russia’s Zarubezhvodstroy in September 2010.

Former senior Bechtel executive Asem Elgawhary has been accused in a Maryland court of taking some $5m in kickbacks from power companies in exchange for preferential treatment on $2bn worth of contracts with an Egyptian electricity company. This was all concealed from his employer. Elgawhary, in the eight-count indictment filed on 10 February, is accused of mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and interference with administration of internal revenue laws. According to the document Elgawhary “used his position… as general manager of a power generation company to solicit and obtain millions of dollars of kickbacks for his personal benefit from US and foreign power companies that were attempting to secure lucrative contracts to perform power-related services.

The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) has signed a letter of intent with General Electric for the provision of what the latter calls an “end-to-end to power intervention”, a programme aiming to facilitate greater use of NDPHC power plants by improving transmission and distribution infrastructure. The agreement will involve a series of projects to unlock 2.5GW of additional generation capacity to be sold to industrial and commercial hubs in the country.

Operator Murphy Oil has pulled out of the offshore Ntem Block, transferring its 50% stake to Sterling Energy at no cost to Sterling. The Bamboo exploration well drilled in H1 2014 failed to find hydrocarbons, and the block is the subject of overlapping border claims by Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Force majeure was lifted on the block in January 2014 by agreement with Cameroon’s Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH) to enable drilling to go ahead, though the well was outside the affected area.

Technip Italy announced two contracts on 27 July to modernise Egypt’s Assiut and Midor refineries. The first is a joint agreement with Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and Assiut Oil Refining Company for the modernisation of the Assiut refinery in Upper Egypt. The $1.5bn investment aims at maximising diesel production and introducing the most modern refinery technologies to help meet growing local demand for petroleum products. According to the agreement, Technip will start initial work on the project immediately, as well as providing support to ensure project financing.

Cabinet reshuffle and impact on hydrocarbons sector

There have been several false dawns, with Moroccan governments promising a major new gas import scheme to provide energy security for two decades. But recent statements by energy minister Abdelkader Amara suggest Rabat is finally committing to LNG. Amara has said the long-awaited gas law will come before parliament by June (ahead of general elections in 2016), but before then the Islamist -led government plans to open talks on contracts to supply 3-5bcm/yr. Main competitors GDF Suez and Royal Dutch Shell have dedicated senior management teams to developing a Moroccan deal over several years.

In another co-financing operation to support Cameroon’s power sector, the African Development Bank has approved a $71.1m loan to finance the Lom Pangar hydroelectric project

A €12m ($13.3m) loan is under appraisal at the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance power sector recovery in São Tomé & Príncipe. The project is coordinated with a $16m grant from the World Bank Group’s International Development Association (IDA), agreed in August. The project has a total cost of $29m. The main component is investment to improve reliability of electricity generation, transmission and distribution, with $10.6m from IDA and $7.8m from the EIB. Half of the total will finance the rehabilitation of the 1.9MW Contador hydropower plant, where available capacity has shrunk to just 1MW, and the upgrading of the plant to 2.2MW.

Total has given up hope of reaching a successful conclusion to negotiations with the government to build an estimated $7bn ethane cracker, a source close to the project told African Energy on 10 March. A headline agreement for the 1.4m t/yr facility at Arzew was signed in 2007. Press reports in early March claimed that state energy company Sonatrach had issued Total with a ‘fin de non-recevoir’, or categorical refusal, on the project. There has been no such official communication, the source said, but the French company had nevertheless already given up hope of further progress in the talks.