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Africa Oil Corporation (AOC) said the farm-in process for Block 3B/4B offshore South Africa is advancing, with the aim of securing a new partner by end-Q1 2023. The Vancouver-based company has described Block 3B/4B as “on trend” with the Venus and Graff oil discoveries made by TotalEnergies and Shell in Namibia’s Orange Basin in early 2022.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update, issued at the end of January, underlines China’s importance both globally and for an African continent where it has made considerable efforts to build political relations and infrastructure, in order to secure resources vital to its domestic growth.

Sasol has signed a series of power purchase agreements – two of them in partnership with France’s Air Liquide – which will in total deliver 289MW of wind power for its Secunda and Sasolburg sites, as part of plans by the energy and chemicals company to ramp up its use of renewable energy.

Algerian state giant Sonatrach subsidiary Sonatrach Raffineria Italiana and South Africa’s Sasol Italy have been meeting local stakeholders in Sicily to promote their Hybla project to build a plant producing hydrogen and low-carbon syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide).

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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. 

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.  

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.