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It all seems like business as usual. Australian Securities Exchange and Alternative Investment Market-listed Range Resources has announced a new financial agreement with its joint venture partner Canada-based Africa Oil Corporation (AOC), for a second exploration well due to be spudded by September. This will be included as part of AOC’s exploration commitments,which oblige it to spend $22.5m in Dharoor and Nugaal before Range reverts to a contributing basis. A Range company report says AOC has satisfied its commitments with regard to Dharoor, but still has around $15m to pay on Nugaal.

The European Investment Bank on 10 September agreed a loan of €75m ($100m) to Eskom to finance the construction of a 100MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plant near Upington, in the Northern Cape. The project is also receiving funding from the African Development Bank, Agence Française de Développement, the Clean Technology Fund, Germany’s KfW and the World Bank.

French consultancy Sofreco has a new technical assistance contract to support the energy agency of the three-nation Great Lakes Economic Community (CEPGL), Energie des Grands Lacs. The 2015-16 contract is intended to build institutional, technical, human and other capacity; update the Regional Energy Master Plan; harmonise norms and standards, and environmental assessment practices; adopt funding, implementation and monitoring procedures for studies and projects; and consolidate the information and communication system.

The government’s decision to abandon controversial plans to create regional electricity distributors shows the state centralising key business decisions, rather than letting the market shape the direction of the supply industry.

In a continuing reshuffle of parastatal heads and other senior posts by the outgoing prime minister, Youssef Chahed, his Tahya Tounès party ally Leila Ouled Ali Bahri is to become head of Steg Energies Renouvelables (ER), the renewables affiliate of state utility Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz. Created in 2010 to promote solar projects, Steg ER has public and a few private sector shareholders, not all of whom are said to be happy with Chahed’s last-minute ‘political’ appointment.

Elecnor subsidiary IQA Group has won UK Export Finance (UKEF) support for a contract to upgrade two substations in Viana, east of Luanda, and Gabela, in Kwanza Sul, over two years.

Two Egyptian refining projects expect to complete loan finance arrangements early this year, writes John Hamilton

Promoted from the ranks to lead the company he originally joined in 1984, Sonatrach chairman and chief executive Rachid Hachichi is struggling to convince Algerians their state energy giant can overcome corruption and win investment without compromising national interests. With politics still in ferment, a weak interim government hopes to pass a revised hydrocarbons law as soon as 15 November – before controversial presidential elections are held on 12 December.

Prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn formally inaugurated the 120MW Ashegoda wind farm on 26 October. The wind farm, which started commissioning a year ago, was developed by France’s Vergnet, which signed a contract with Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) in October 2008. Lahmeyer carried out feasibility studies and supervised construction. Financing for the €210m ($272m) project was provided by €113m of buyer credit from Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur, a €45m concessional loan from the Agence Française de Développement, and a €33m tied commercial loan from BNP Paribas. EEPCo provided €19m in local currency.

US conglomerate GE has announced plans to develop a 100MW wind farm in Ngong, 20km south-west of Nairobi. GE chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Immelt told reporters in Nairobi that a strategic memorandum of understanding would be signed between GE and the Kenya government GE plans 100MW wind farm at Ngong

Operator Repsol has spudded the first exploration well in onshore Block Ta10 in the Taoudeni Basin. Partner RWE Dea said the Ouguiya-1 well was being drilled by the Saipem 5893 drilling rig. Its primary targets are Precambrian formations, and the well is scheduled to be completed in Q2 2014. “We are very pleased that, together with our partner, we have commenced this well, which is both challenging from an engineering point as well as being of great interest in geological terms,” said RWE senior vice-president exploration Werner Schwarzhans.

Energy services company Wood Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ghanaian company Hydra Offshore to explore opportunities to provide subsea engineering services to local operators. The Aberdeen-based company said the collaboration would combine the strengths of Hydra Offshore’s subsea engineering capabilities with the technical experience, capability, technology and technical assurance of Wood Group’s global oil and gas business. Hydra is a wholly Ghanaian-owned company providing offshore and subsea engineering services to the oil and gas industry in Ghana.

France’s Eranove Group in partnership with Gabon’s state investment fund Fonds Gabonais d’Investissements Stratégiques (FGIS) invites expressions of interest by 30 April from engineering firms to prepare detailed design studies and assist with the project management for the Dibwangui hydropower project on the Louetsi River in the south-eastern region of Ngounié. The low-head project, with an estimated installed capacity of around 15MW, is to be developed by Eranove on a build-own-operate-transfer basis under a 30-year concession signed with FGIS in October 2016.

Kosmos Energy would like more credit for Ghana’s Jubilee field, writes Our Accra Correspondent. Chairman James Musselman argued that his team of Triton Energy veterans who discovered and developed Equatorial Guinea’s deep-water Ceiba field had the experience that field operator Tullow Oil lacked.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) board on 19 December agreed a $3m loan to Comoros to support energy sector reforms, particularly for electricity and financial governance. The reforms aim to strengthen the governance and performance of the energy sector so that it can support the country’s economic development, and to encourage the state to consolidate and deepen the reform of public finance management.