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With bids due in by end-January on seismic data acquisition, Petroleum Agency South Africa (Pasa) is hoping this year will see progress towards licensing rounds covering offshore and onshore acreage which could be launched in 2024.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s re-election as African National Congress leader, and with it the right to lead the governing ANC in the 2024 presidential elections, has deep implications for the South African energy industry and wider economy – some of them very negative, as Eskom struggles with a legacy of corruption in a public sector prone to mismanagement, write Tonderayi Mukeredzi with Jon Marks.

French independent power producer (IPP) Voltalia has begun construction of the 148MW Bolobedu solar PV plant in Limpopo province.  

A realignment of global alliances is ever more apparent as the first anniversary of Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine approaches and global power and wealth seem to concentrate in ever fewer hands. This has been seen in the solidarity among members of the Opec+ oil exporters’ alliance, in which long western-aligned Saudi Arabia and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia remain the driving forces.

London’s Westminster Magistrates Court approved an extradition request from South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to send UK citizen Michael Lomas to stand trial in connection with the ZAR745m ($42.1m) Eskom Kusile fraud and corruption case. Lomas had seven days to appeal the court’s 15 December decision.

London AIM-quoted Eco Atlantic said on 20 December it had won regulatory approval from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and Petroleum Agency of South Africa for its wholly-owned subsidiary Azinam to acquire another 6.25% in offshore Block 3B/4B from the Lunn Family Trust.

Power purchase agreements have been signed for 18 solar power projects under the fifth and sixth bid windows of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP), as South Africa strives to add new generation capacity to the national grid. Despite receiving bids for 4,116MW of onshore wind capacity, mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe failed to announce any new wind projects under REIPPPP6.  

South Korea’s Hyosung Heavy Industries has started construction of a battery energy storage facility at Elandskop in South Africa's Kwazulu Natal region. Elandskop is the first phase of Eskom’s wider battery energy storage system (BESS) project, which includes the installation of about 199MW of capacity, with 833MWh of distributed battery storage at eight sites countrywide. 

Even though his departure had been signalled in months of political bickering as load-shedding has undermined the state utility and the government, there were mixed reactions to the resignation of Eskom chief executive officer Andre De Ruyter on 14 December, after a turbulent three years.

Eskom’s approval of Pan African Resources’s Elikhulu Tailings solar PV plant to connect to the national grid makes it the first embedded project over 1MW to get full grid compliance.

Energy leasing firm Solarise Africa (Solarise) has secured debt finance from a group of investors led by the Facility for Energy Inclusion (FEI), which it will use to grow its commercial and industrial (C&I) business in Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s first gigawatt-scale green hydrogen (GH2) facility is expected to enter a new phase soon African Energy's AIX: Power and Renewables 2022 meeting was told. South Africa's 900,000 t/yr Coega green ammonia plant, being developed by the UK’s Hive Energy and Germany’s Linde, is expected to sign a 20-year offtake agreement imminently with a major anchor client.

TotalEnergies is planning fresh drilling activities in the Namibian and South African portions of the Orange basin in 2024, with a multi-well wildcat campaign lined up for South African waters and an appraisal well targeting a western extension of its Venus oil and gas discovery offshore Namibia.

Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas has announced that it has not found evidence of commercial hydrocarbons at its Gazania-1 well on offshore Block 2B. The failure to encounter a commercial play so close to the Venus and Graff discoveries will disappoint South Africans hoping for exploration successes in the Orange Basin.

Ratings agency Moody’s gave a positive response after the government said it would assume up to two-thirds of troubled Eskom’s debts, but several bailouts have failed in the past and there are doubts about the latest plan’s likelihood of success in meeting the ultimate goal of creating a sustainable utility.