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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.

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). 
 


Following a farm-in from ExxonMobil on its Block LB-13, Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited (COPL) plans to list its shares on London’s Alternative Investment Market in 2014. Chief executive Andrew Milholland told an investor forum in London organised by Proactive Investors that the company had seen its shares triple in value on the Toronto Venture Exchange in the last 12 months. Parliament ratified an amended production-sharing contract for the block in April 2013, giving ExxonMobil an 80% operating stake and COPL the remaining 20%. A well is planned for Q1 2014.

The Export-Import Bank of India signed a line of credit agreement worth up to $144m with the government of Liberia on 11 September for a power transmission and distribution project. The line of credit is the first that the bank has provided to Liberia and will reimburse the entire value of contracts awarded to Indian exporters.

Robert Sirleaf, son of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has resigned as president of National Oil Company of Liberia (Nocal) and as a presidential adviser, saying that the passing of new oil laws means his job is done. “With the submission to our national legislature of a comprehensive modernisation of the laws governing Liberia’s petroleum sector and Nocal… my job is complete,” Sirleaf said in a 17 September resignation letter addressed to his mother. Nocal vice-president for public affairs Israel Akinsaya resigned the same day “due to pressing family matters”.

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 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has renewed calls for a fast-track court on corruption. Speaking during the dedication of projects undertaken for independence celebrations on 26 July, she said that the three branches of government – executive, legislative (consisting of the Senate and House of Representatives) and judiciary – would work together for the country’s prosperity. “We have been calling for a fast-track court on corruption; so we are emphasising that call on the legislature because the executive cannot do it alone. We need to address some problems,” she said.

Speaking in Cape Town at the end of June, Barack Obama unveiled a new multi-billion dollar power initiative, Power Africa, aimed at doubling sub-Saharan access rates, boosting generation capacity by 10,000MW and connecting more than 20m households and businesses to the grid over the next five years. Under the scheme, the US government will provide $7bn of financial support, while a major private sector investment drive will pump an additional $9bn-worth of investment into African power projects. Power Africa has identified six initial partner countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania – all of which “have set ambitious goals in electric power generation and are making the utility and energy sector reforms to pave the way for investment and growth”, according to the White House. 


Engineering contractor Motherwell Bridge has completed construction of the first tank of a $22m project to renovate and build 22 oil storage tanks at the state-owned Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) terminal on Bushrod Island.

Work is getting under way on the $35m World Bank-financed Accelerated Electricity Expansion Project (AEEP). Due for completion by 30 June 2018, the project will help the government reach its target of connecting 70% of the population of the capital, Monrovia, and 35% of the national population to the grid by 2030. The Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) had only 14,000 customers registered in December 2012, up from 2,469 in July 2010, and equivalent to 6.7% of the population of Monrovia and 1.6% of the population as a whole. Expanding access has been hampered by the high cost of electricity, which at $0.50/kWh is among the costliest in the world and compares poorly with the sub-Saharan average of $0.15/kWh.

The Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) in late May said that several government officials had refused to co-operate with its recent phase of the Assets Declaration Verification Exercise. LACC chairwoman Frances Johnson-Allison told a 21 May news conference on the release of its report into the first phase of the exercise that 18 government officials had failed to co-operate, despite receiving “multiple notices” from the commission.

Biomass producer Buchanan Renewables (BR) has been sold to an investor group, after a project to recycle old rubber trees and rejuvenate Liberia’s once world-leading rubber industry proved more challenging than expected. Stockholm-based Vattenfall and Swedish government-owned private equity company Swedfund backed the project to convert old rubber trees from the former Firestone plantation to woodchip. The woodchips were intended to fuel a 36MW biomass power plant in Monrovia, as well as being sold for export. But the scheme ran into difficulties and the Swedish backers pulled out last year.

Liberia’s Senate and House of Representatives have voted to ratify an amended production-sharing contract for Block LB-13, enabling Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd (COPL) to bring in ExxonMobil as a partner (AE 250/1). The deal, which enables the US supermajor to take an 80% operating stake, had created controversy because of suspicions that Liberia might not be getting the best deal.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd (COPL) has agreed a new PSC for Block LB-13, bringing in ExxonMobil as a partner. The deal, whose terms had created controversy within Liberia, will now be sent to parliament for ratification. COPL Bermuda has a 20% working interest, while ExxonMobil has 80% and will pay COPL’s share of the first $120m of drilling costs. The new PSC includes a $50m signature bonus.

African Petroleum Corporation has announced an oil discovery with the Bee Eater-1 well, a large step-out drilled 9.5km west of the company’s Narina-1 discovery to test the Turonian fan. The well encountered 48 metres of Narina-equivalent Turonian oil-bearing sandstones out of a 135-metre oil interval.