Search results

Gasol has agreed to buy upstream company Energie de Côte d’Ivoire (Enerci) from GDF Suez E&P International. Enerci is an Ivorian-registered company that owns a 12% stake in the gas-producing CI-27 licence that includes the Foxtrot field. “The acquisition provides us with an opportunity to bring a revenue-generating, profitable and self-funding asset into the group and, as such, represents a key milestone in our development as well as a stable, financeable cash-flow base from which to grow,” said Gasol chief operating officer Alan Buxton.

Tullow Oil has announced that the Paon-2A appraisal well in the CI-103 licence has hit water below the oil accumulation discovered at the Paon-1X well, reducing the upside volume potential associated with the Autruche field. “The Paon-2A well has efficiently identified the likely depth of the oil water contact and we are reviewing the resource range and our future monetisation options,” said Tullow exploration director Angus McCoss. “The well did not encounter oil at this location, reducing the upside volume potential associated with the Autruche field.

The need to maintain supplies of oil and gas in the face of growing competition from new players, and pressure to generate profits during a period when downstream margins are lacklustre, has led to an upsurge in activity by the majors in frontier areas like Benin, South Africa, Kenya and Madagascar, which were previously seen as the territory of more nimble independents. Total’s secretary general Africa Abiodun Afolabi told Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Upstream conference in Cape Town on 27 November that the French major planned exploration drilling in five countries in 2014.

Société Générale and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation have co-arranged a $300m structured trade facility for Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR), to help finance oil imports for the Abidjan refinery. IFC and Société Générale will each participate with up to $100m in the facility, while BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered Bank will also take part. The facility will finance around $2bn of oil imports over the next two years for SIR, which supplies refined petroleum products for Côte d’Ivoire as well as Burkina Faso, Mali, and other countries in western Africa.

London-based Rialto Energy has rounded off its restructuring with a new name – Azonto Petroleum, named after a Ghanaian dance. This year, the company has completely replaced its executive team, brought in Vitol as a partner, and renegotiated its licence for Côte d’Ivoire block CI-202 to give it more time to complete its work programme after it was obliged to cancel a rig contract earlier this year due to lack of funds. Presenting the new-look company at Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Independents’ Forum in Cape Town on 26 November.

London-based Rialto Energy has rounded off its restructuring with a new name – Azonto Petroleum, named after a Ghanaian dance. This year, the company has completely replaced its executive team, brought in Vitol as a partner, and renegotiated its licence for Côte d’Ivoire block CI-202 to give it more time to complete its work programme after it was obliged to cancel a rig contract earlier this year due to lack of funds. Presenting the new-look company at Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Independents’ Forum in Cape Town on 26 November.

The African Development Bank board approved a financing package on 6 November for the Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (CLSG) electricity networks interconnection project. The total financing by the African Development Fund, Fragile States Facility and Nigeria Trust Fund amounts to €145m, representing roughly 40% of the total project cost. The project will secure power supply for the four Mano River Union member countries, and will be implemented between 2014 and 2017. The CLSG project involves the construction of about 1,400km of high voltage (225 kV) line to connect the national networks of the four countries.

Three UK government ministries have launched the High Level Prosperity Partnerships, aiming to strengthen economic cooperation with Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office, UK Trade & Investment and the Department for International Development (DfID) will work together to identify opportunities to increase trade and investment, to harness what ministers describe as the UK’s “competitive advantage” amid growing competition from new investors in Africa as well as the continent’s traditional partners. The initiative follows a summit of the Group of Eight wealthiest countries in Northern Ireland in June, hosted by UK prime minister David Cameron, which gave its backing to the growing global transparency agenda with a ten-point plan covering a range of issues including tax evasion, payment transparency and ending barriers to free trade

Côte d’Ivoire relies on natural gas for around 70% of its generation capacity. Domestic supply from fields operated by Foxtrot International and Petroci is meeting demand for now, but fresh reserves are needed to meet growing domestic energy demand. As well as the planned expansion of the CI-27 Foxtrot field, the government’s primary hope in the near term is Rialto Energy, an Australian explorer which entered the country in 2010. Rialto operates Block CI-202, which has five oil and gas discoveries, and is estimated to hold some 40m barrels of oil and condensate and 270bcf of natural gas.

GABON: Grand Poubara dam start-up. China’s Sinohydro has brought on stream the Grand Poubara hydro plant on the Ogooué River. The dam has an installed capacity of 160MW, from four 40MW turbines. The project also includes two transmission lines, one to Franceville, Gabon’s third largest city, 15km from the project site, the other to the manganese mining region of Moanda. A second phase is planned to increase capacity to 280MW. Two other hydro projects are under construction, Chutes de l’Impératrice on the Ogooué River, and Fe2 on the Okano River (AE 245/1). 
 


The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation has completed a €200m ($262m) financing package for the expansion of the Compagnie Ivoirienne de Production d’Electricité (Ciprel) gas-fired power plant. The expansion comprises the addition of a 111MW gas turbine (Phase 4A), and conversion to combined cycle of its two latest gas turbines, which will add a further 111MW capacity via a steam turbine (Phase 4B). The two investments will cost a total of €350m. For Phase 4B, IFC is providing a €100m loan, while Proparco and the African Development Bank are each providing €50m loans.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has invited expressions of interest from consultants for a feasibility study for the expansion of the West African Gas Pipeline. An extension to Côte d’Ivoire had been mooted before the country’s civil conflict, and prime minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said on 29 July that a pipeline running between Lagos and Abidjan would enable more private power producers to improve energy supply in neighbouring countries. Côte d’Ivoire is already supplying power to Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana Benin and Togo via the West African Power Pool, and will also supply Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea once interconnection infrastructure is completed.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) board on 24 July approved a €50m ($66m) loan for the expansion of the Compagnie Ivoirienne de Production d’Electricité (Ciprel) plant at Vridi (AE 224/7). The project, which has been on the cards for more than 18 months, will expand the existing 321MW power plant to 543MW. The Ciprel plant, owned by France’s Bouygues, consists of three 33MW General Electric (GE) MS6001 B-type gas turbines commissioned in 1995, one 111MW GE MS 9001 E-type gas turbine commissioned in 1997 and one 111MW PG 9171 E-type gas turbine commissioned in 2009.

Tullow Oil has announced plans to farm down its equity in the Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (Ten) development and production area in return for a carry on development costs. “This will enable Tullow to manage its exposure to development spend over the coming years whilst retaining a material interest and operatorship of the high-value oil production expected to commence in mid-2016,” the company said. The importance of Tullow’s West African oil production portfolio can be seen in the company’s H1 results, in which the region represented 77% of the company’s 88,600 boe/d working interest production. Production from Ghana’s Jubilee field is 110,000 b/d, with a target of 120,000 b/d by year-end, while the company is working to maintain stable production from established fields in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

President Alassane Ouattara inaugurated the Abidjan-Yamoussoukro products pipeline on 29 July. Work on the 258km pipeline started in 2007 and the project has cost CFAF140bn ($283m). Speaking at the ceremony, oil and energy minister Adama Toungara said the pipeline had a transport capacity of 4m litres, the equivalent of 130 tanker trucks. Describing it as “a tool for regional integration”, he said the pipeline would improve security of supply for markets in the interior of the country, and neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso.