Search results

The leak of briefing notes for COP28 president Sultan Al-Jaber just ahead of the summit’s opening in Dubai drew attention to the United Arab Emirate’s extensive energy dealings in key African economies, including Egypt and Kenya. Key players include renewables flagship Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) and oil giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

The idea that electricity generated by wind and solar plants in Egypt could eventually be transported across the European continent to supply the UK’s national grid is far-fetched, but on the agenda.

Balanced on a financial tight-rope, the Egyptian government is still securing investment commitments for its green energy transition and has brought forward its renewables target by five years. London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is financing the first part of a $2bn programme of transmission upgrades and has named the first gas-fired generator to be shut under the scheme, while Maersk’s new C2X green methanol venture has picked Egypt for its first deal.

The launch of a 23-block oil and gas licensing round by EGPC and Ganope demonstrates the Ministry of Petroleum’s two parallel priorities: the need to attract investment to established hydrocarbons basins in the Western Desert and Gulf of Suez, while also developing new resource plays in the unexplored southern desert and Red Sea zones.

The installation of the reactor core at the first unit of the Dabaa nuclear plant on 6 October confirms the project as an anchor of Cairo’s political and financial alliance with Moscow for the next 50 years. It is a step which will have a more meaningful impact than Egypt’s recently agreed membership of the enlarged Brics alliance, writes John Hamilton.

Egyptians are hoping for cooler weather and with it the end of severe rolling power outages which have caused difficulties throughout the summer. However, the social and economic legacies of the electricity supply crisis will outlast the ferocious Mediterranean heatwave, which has provided the government’s only – but far from satisfying – explanation for why the outages happened, writes John Hamilton.

Cairo is pressing on with the implementation of its existing electricity supply industry (ESI) strategy in the face of severe headwinds. Some major reforms, including energy sector liberalisation, are certain to be delayed, but the authorities continue to drive big ticket projects forward – and to pile on new ones – while striving to keep international investors on-side in a highly precarious financial situation.

The agreement for Senegal to become only the second African economy to secure a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) has the potential to salvage the climate financing framework’s credibility, which appeared to be flatlining.

The Egyptian government has approved ExxonMobil’s exploration agreements with Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) for the Cairo Offshore and Masry Offshore blocks, which are the most northern areas to be licensed in Egypt to date.

The allocation of large parcels of land on the River Nile’s west bank to Saudi developer Acwa Power and Norway’s Scatec for the construction of giga-scale wind projects is another step forward for Egypt’s ambitious decarbonisation plans – which could ultimately result in large amounts of gas being freed up for export.

Centamin on 26 July announced the completion of preliminary work to expand its solar PV plant at the Sukari gold mine, near Marsa Alam on Egypt's Red Sea Coast. Centamin also said that qualifying tenders for Sukari’s connection to the grid had been received.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi have pledged to renew efforts to resolve their dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) during a meeting in Cairo. The two leaders said they would try to reach an agreement on the dam’s filling and operating procedures within four months.

Despite immense political and financial challenges caused by Egypt’s debt and currency crisis, and suggestions of inter-departmental conflicts over the control of sensitive dossiers, the energy authorities in Cairo and The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE) are continuing to plot an aggressive course towards the transformation of the power sector.

Actis has been selected as preferred bidder for what will be Egypt’s first power sector privatisation. The deal has yet to be formally announced but an industry source confirmed to African Energy that Actis was the successful bidder for a trio of wind plants built in the Gulf of Suez, which are being sold as a single entity.

While energy majors are pouring large sums into African markets such as Namibia that, until recently, had often been overlooked, the situation for independent oil and gas companies is also changing.