Search results

The European Commission has agreed to provide a grant of around €30m ($34m) to the African Development Bank (AfDB) for a 225kV interconnection project between Cameroon and Chad. The deal was agreed on 20 December but only announced in January. The project involves a 700km line from Ngaoundéré to Maroua in Cameroon and on to N’djamena and a second 250km line connecting Maroua to Mogrom in Chad and then completing the loop at N’djamena.

The Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL), has said the 183MW Isimba dam is ready for commissioning at the end of January. UEGCL corporate affairs manager Simon Kasyate told the Daily Monitor the dam’s four Kaplan turbine generator units were running by 10 January when the UEGCL board concluded a routine appraisal of the project.Isimba is being built by China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE) through a $567.7m contract 85% funded by the Export-Import Bank of China.

Two wells drilled by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation have failed to find commercial hydrocarbons. In its Q2 operations report on 24 July, Anadarko said the Paon-6A well on Block CI-103 finished drilling during the quarter and did not encounter hydrocarbons. The well was drilled to appraise the Paon discovery, and the company and its partners are evaluating next steps for the project. On Block CI-527, the Colibri-1X exploration well spudded in June and recently finished drilling.

According to Hong Kong-registered, Ethiopia-based SouthWest Energy chairman and chief executive Tewodros Ashenafi, the use of full-tensor gravity (FTG) geophysical surveying technology – initially developed

Avantha Group company CG has won an order from Sonelgaz subsidiary Comptoir Algérien du Matériel Electrique et Gazier (Cameg) for the supply and installation of 60kV instrument transformers at substations across Algeria. CG will provide high-voltage equipment worth E4m, including 800x60 kV current transformers, 800x60 kV capacitive voltage transformers, and 250x60 kV inductive voltage transformers. The project started in April and will be completed by October 2015. CG’s Indian manufacturing facilities in Nashik and Aurangabad will be part of the project that involves CG delivering equipment in Algiers, Oran, Skikda, DjenDjen and Mostaganem.

The World Bank’s board of executive directors has approved a loan of $600m to support the $2.2bn Ain Sokhna power project (AE 154/10). The project will finance a 1,300MW supercritical steam turbine power plant comprising two 650MW steam turbine generators. The plant will be under the management of East Delta Production Company

Kipeto Energy announced on 2 June that it has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Kenya Power for a 100MW wind power project in Kajiado County. The PPA was first initialled on 28 July 2015 during US President Barack Obama’s visit to the country. Financial close and the start of construction are expected in the second half of 2016. Kipeto Energy is owned by African Infrastructure Investment Managers, Kenyan independent power producer developer Craftskills Wind Energy International, and the International Finance Corporation’s IFC Infraventures.

Even in a country that has become accustomed to scandal and incompetence at the highest levels of government, the sudden “strategic redeployment” of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene on 9 December caused public outrage and market turbulence. Nene was replaced by unknown backbencher David van Rooyen, a man with no experience of national government. The rand fell to more than R16 to the dollar, South African government bond yields spiked, and equity in South African banks took a hammering, in what one banking source described to African Energy as the biggest domestic economic shock to hit the country since the end of apartheid rule in 1994.

Renewables developer Lekela Power is multiplying its Egyptian interests, demonstrating strong confidence in the viability and attractiveness of large-scale wind generation developments in the Gulf of Suez. In early November, it struck a bilateral agreement with Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) for a 250MW wind farm, which it will construct on a build, own, operate (BOO) basis. This project is separate from the tender to develop a similar plant in the same region, for which both Lekela and France’s Engie (formerly GDF Suez) submitted bids to EETC in April.

The Energy Regulation Board (ERB) has allowed state power utility Zesco to increase electricity tariffs by as much as 200% with effect from 2 December. Tariffs for low-volume residential users remain unchanged. “The proposed tariff adjustment is expected to generate revenue that will facilitate investment of $3.7bn in generation projects, thereby adding capacity of 1,500MW to the national grid,” the ERB said in a statement.

China International Water & Electric Corporation (CWE) has signed a $325m engineering, procurement and construction contract with the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources for the 72MW Menchum hydro scheme. The project, which involves building a concrete main dam on the Menchum River in Cameroon’s Northwest Region, will take an estimated 40 months to build. CWE is also building the Lom Pangar dam on the Sanaga River.

The Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC) has announced the 10 May arrest of 13 high-level government officials on charges of corruption. Those arrested include Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority director-general (with ministerial rank) Melaku Fenta, his deputy, Gebrewahid Woldegiorgis, and the authority’s chief prosecutor, Eshetu Semayat. Local media reports say some businessmen have also been arrested as part of the FEACC investigation, including KK Trading’s Ketema Kebede, Intercontinental Addis Hotel owner Simachew Kebede and Netsa Trading owner Nega Egziabher.

The National Water and Electricity Company has invited bids by 24 December for the construction of transmission infrastructure between the city of Brikama and the coastal resort of Kotu in the Greater Banjul area.

The delayed 9.3MW Kakobola dam on the Lukufu River in Bandundu province should be completed in December, enabling President Joseph Kabila to inaugurate it by year-end, minister of energy and water resources Jeannot Matadi Nenga said on 28 July. Local sources say the project has been held up by the theft of 10km of cables, as well as a delay by the Congolese government in disbursing its contribution to the $55m project.

The NDC government is unhappy with the original contracts signed by the Jubilee partners, especially the Kosmos deal. Analysts say they lacked rigour, although this rather reflected the prevailing situation: Kosmos and a few other IOCs took acreage in highly speculative deals, in a frontier with a poor track record for exploration and production.