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In early October, National Oil Corporation (NOC) officials met Central Bank of Libya (CBL) governor Sadiq Al-Kebir, tribal and municipal representatives, and international stakeholders including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, diplomats and international oil company executives at St George’s House in Windsor Castle. According to NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla, the most important of the eight principles agreed during the meeting was that the exploitation of Libya’s oil and gas resources should be for the benefit of all Libyan people, regardless of location.

Not for the first time, the availability of financing for African energy players was split in 2009, between commercial banks seeking structured oil deals and power projects largely dependent on official funders, writes Kevin Godier

Local players brought in to sell directly foreign companies after the government abandoned direct licensing round are coming under increasing scrutiny

Officials from Burundi, DRC and Rwanda are expected to meet potential investors in Kigali in March to put together an estimated $500m financing package for the planned Ruzizi III HEP scheme, which would supply electricity to all three partner states.

IOCs report renewed optimism over investments in maritime joint development zones following Angola’s deal with Republic of Congo to jointly develop the offshore Lianzi field. But some disputes remain apparently intractable, stopping other joint developments in the area

Zesco on 5 March signed a $163m loan agreement with Sweden’s Nordea Bank AB and Standard Bank of South Africa for a transmission infrastructure project. The project will connect the whole of North-Western Province and parts of Western Province to the national grid, allowing isolated diesel generators to be removed and opening up the possibility of future interconnection with the Angolan grid. Zesco spends more than $6m/yr procuring diesel fuel, Zesco managing director Cyprian Chitundu said at the signing ceremony.

Petrel Resources and Clontarf Energy say they are close to receiving government approval of a licence for Tano 2A, a 1,532km2 onshore/offshore block close to the Jubilee oil field.

Is Libya, with its huge and apparently available upstream potential – not to mention its long pockets following several years of oil price boom – going to break investors’ hearts by embracing the sort of resource nationalism that the more liberal members of Muammar Qadhafi’s regime say the Jamahiriya (State of the Masses) had left behind? Since Colonel Qadhafi said that Libya might nationalise

Publication of the final Natural Gas Policy document, which was promised for June, has been held up as parliament concentrates on finalising the 2013/14 budget. “While having previously indicated that the Policy would be published during June, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals is still understood to be finalising approval of the document prior to formal publication,” law firm Clyde & Co said in their monthly energy briefing.

Kosmos Energy has signed agreements with Atwood Oceanics and Noble Energy to use the moored semi-submersible rig Atwood Hunter for its deep-water drilling programme offshore West Africa

Government efforts to improve the economics of Ethiopia’s electricity supply industry encompass the full sweep of the supply chain, including improving collections, utility unbundling, debt restructuring, private investment in generation, least-cost electrification, capacity building and tariff increases. At the core of the reforms are efforts to improve the financial strength of the utilities and increase sector liquidity. Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation was split in 2013 into Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), responsible for generation and transmission, and Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU), responsible for distribution.

Norway’s InterOil Exploration & Production has signed an agreement with Iran’s Petropars to sell 10% in the CabindaNorth licence for $7m. The 2,400km2 block is operated by Sonangol P&P and InterOil farmed-in in January 2008, taking21%. The block has existing oil discoveries in the Zila ridge area near the coast and in the Dinge high area. Sonangol has 20%;other partners on the block are SOCO International with 17%, Teikoku Oil Company (17%), Angola Consulting Resources(Acrep) (15%) and Eni Angola (10%).

The Democratic Republic of Congo government’s Comité de Pilotage de la Réforme des Entreprises Publiques (Copirep) has again tendered for a World Bank Group (WBG)-financed management contract to run troubled parastatal Société Nationale de l’Electricité (Snel).

ERHC Energy has filed a lawsuit in the Federal High Court in Abuja “to stop any tampering with its rights” in Blocks 5 and 6 of the Nigeria/São Tomé Joint Development Zone (JDZ), following media reports that it had been removed from the blocks.

Officials in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are making bullish noises about the much-anticipated Inga 3 hydroelectric power project, with the bidding whittled down to two consortia, which officials say are expected to present their final offers by 31 July, for contracts to be signed by year-end. Veteran energy official Bruno Kapandji Kalala – appointed by President Joseph Kabila Kabange to head the Agence pour le Développement et la Promotion du Projet Grand Inga (ADPI-RDC), the unit within the president’s office charged with delivering the Grand Inga project – has set out a roadmap for the project’s implementation and revealed changes to the bidding consortia.