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The government has opted not to renew the management contract granted to Manitoba Hydro International to run Kenya Power & Lighting Company (KPLC). The Canadian company started its two-year contract in July 2006, and met the ambitious target of 120,000 new customer connections for the first year, which included intensive rural electrification.

ANGOLA: CMIC contract for Luanda grid; KENYA: Bamburi Cement to increase biomass use; LIBERIA: Stanley to study Mount Coffee expansion; MOROCCO: Abdelmoumen STEP deadline; MOZAMBIQUE: EDM seeks bids to extend grid; NIGERIA: Chinese to build first coal-fired plant; TANZANIA: AfDB funding; UGANDA: French JV to supply Bujagali; UPDEA: European meeting to discuss reform study

The Greening Tea Industry in East Africa Project (GTIEA) is seeking bids by 21 April from consultants for feasibility studies of six small hydropower projects to be built at tea factories in four East African countries.

Eskom was a key beneficiary of the flurry of contracts whose announcement accompanied President Nicolas Sarkozy’s state visit in February.

President Jakaya Kikwete has given his support for plans by Artumas Group to export compressed natural gas to Kenya, signalling an apparent change of heart by the Tanzanian government.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) registered a 38% fall in net profit to $25.8m for the six months to December 2007, despite an 8.2% rise to $86m in production revenue.

If pessimists are right, it may come to be seen as a balmy period when the strong macroeconomic figures registered by a majority of economies, and the upturn in investor interest from fixed income assets to downstream hydrocarbons mega-projects, suggested that economic positives could now outweigh the perennial political risk factors when assessing African business – the trend recorded by African Energy in 2006-07 (AE 129/22, 120/1).

India’s Essar Energy Overseas has agreed to buy a 50% stake in Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd (KPRL) from Shell Petroleum, Chevron Global and BP Africa. The government holds the other 50% equity in the 4m t/yr Mombasa refinery. The shareholders had been looking to sell up because they were reluctant to finance a planned upgrade.

Caution remains the watchword, but continuing crisis means financial markets analysts are producing increasingly gloomy outlooks for the Kenyan economy and its corporate champions, write Kevin Godier and Jon Marks.

In Nairobi, regional risk mitigation specialist The African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) has remained open for the political and commercial cover that it provides for trade within Africa. “We are all well and the office is open and functioning normally, as the disturbances were localised and not in the main business areas,” said chief executive officer Peter M Jones. “

Assessment of the effect of post-election violence on Kenyan government bonds

Kenya saw a rush to award new exploration licences before the elections because a change of government tends to slow the decision-making process. New arrivals included Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum, also present in neighbouring Sudan, and Canada’s Vangold Resources (AE 125/1).

As they hurtle round the earth 16 times a day at a height of 220 miles, the astronauts of the International Space Station are, among other tasks, photographing vast, previously unknown, and very large scale geological formations capable of assisting oil geologists in their understanding of continental sedimentary basins.