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Major IOCs have underlined their business-as-usual approach in Algeria as both Italy’s Edison and France’s Engie announced on 19 November that they were renewing their strategically important long-term gas contracts. They join Italy’s Enel and Eni, Portugal’s Galp Energia, Turkey’s Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation and Spain’s Naturgy Energy Group (formerly Gas Natural Fenosa) in agreeing new long-term sales deals.This is a major imperative for Algiers, which depends on natural gas sales – which totalled 51.4bcm in 2018, when two-thirds went to Italy and Spain – for a large proportion of its total export revenues.

GE is supplying four Frame 9E gas turbines to China Machinery & Equipment Company (CMEC) for the 500MW Omotosho Phase 2 power plant in Ondo state.

Containerised solar rental company Redavia Global Asset SCA has signed a $2m financing agreement with the European Commission-funded Electrification Financing Initiative (ElectriFI) to support its activities in Ghana’s commercial and industrial sector. The financing follows a $4m facility agreed with responsAbility Investments AG in October last year. The loan is expected to increase Redavia’s fleet of solar plants by around 15MWp.

Heritage Oil has won the battle for Shell’s producing OML 30 in an $850m deal that will significantly boost production and reserves. Heritage has set up a joint venture called Shoreline Natural Resources with local partner Shoreline Power Company to acquire 45% in the block from Shell Petroleum Development Company, Total E&P Nigeria and Nigerian Agip Oil Company.

Sintez Group affiliate Nakor Investments, the main equity holder in Block 1711 in the Namibe Basin bordering Angola, has relinquished most of its 70% stake. Interim operator Energulf Resources said the Russian company would retain a 10% carried interest. Energulf, which holds a 10% working interest, will receive an additional

Gabon is hoping to tap its pre-salt potential with its tenth licensing round due to open on 4 May offering 42 deepwater blocks (AE 162/1). The round has been expected for some time but has been delayed by political developments.

In an unusually frank interview by Libyan standards, National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Shokri Ghanem has told state-owned newspaper Al-Shams that petrol supply shortages were linked to excessive demand stimulated by heavily subsidised

Azonto Petroleum has agreed to sell its 35% stake in Vioco Petroleum to joint-venture partner Vitol, which holds the other 65 percent. Faced with delays and cost increases to the planned Gazelle gas field development, Azonto said it had concluded that a sale was the best way to realise value from its stake in Block CI-202. It said selling up now saved it from committing to a work programme that it could not finance, and that it could potentially consider alternative asset acquisitions.

Tullow is structuring its Uganda farm-down to give each of the partners operatorship in one of the three blocks, in a bid to make development of the Lake Albert Basin less of a one-man show, writes Thalia Griffiths

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) announced grant funding for a solar project in northern Nigeria during President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Washington on 19-22 July. Lagos-based Quaint Global Energy Solutions Nigeria Ltd plans a 50MW on-grid solar plant at Manchok Ranch in Kaduna State. The company, a subsidiary of Houston-based Quaint Solutions and Trading Company, says its Abiba project is a 50MW utility plant being developed by 100%-owner Quaint GES.

UK private company Wessex Exploration plans to list on London’s PLUS market by 1 September. The PLUS market is proving popular with minnow oil companies looking to raise funds – the UK-based Africa Oil Exploration Plc listed in January 2008 raising £1.03m (AE 142/16).

Ophir Energy said on 9 July that it has awarded upstream front-end engineering and design (FEED) contracts for the Fortuna floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project in Block R to two contractor consortia. The company says it is considering a second FLNG vessel on the development, while still looking to bring in a farm-in partner before its planned final investment decision (FID) in mid-2016.The upstream FEED contract, awarded to McDermott Marine Construction Ltd with GE Oil & Gas UK Ltd, and Subsea 7 with Aker Solutions, will be a competitive process, with the scope of work including subsea development design.

Royal Dutch Shell has acquired blocks 2913A and 2914B in the Orange Basin from Signet Petroleum, which is 42% owned by AIM-listed Polo Resources. Shell has bought Signet’s 90% interest in the blocks, with National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia retaining its 10% carried interest. The acreage borders Shell’s Orange Basin Deep Water Block off the west coast of South Africa, where the company acquired 8,500km2 of 3D seismic last year and is looking for a farm-in partner. Signet announced on 12 February that it had concluded a transaction for the sale of its interests “to a major international oil company in a confidential transaction”.

Investment bank Renaissance Capital is suing African Minerals in London’s Commercial Court for £25m of unpaid advisory fees relating to a fundraising in 2010. The dispute centres on a £170m cash injection by Chinese state-owned China Railway Materials Commercial Corporation to develop Sierra Leone’s Tonkolili iron ore mine, a deal for which Renaissance Capital claims it is owed substantial fees for facilitating.

Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy says it is assessing tender responses for the floating production, storage and offloading facility and subsea infrastructure for the SNE oil development ahead of front-end engineering design work planned for Q4 2018.Announcing its half-year results on 11 September, Cairn said submission and approval of a development and exploitation plan was targeted for H2 2018, with a final investment decision to follow in 2019.