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Efforts to improve co-ordination between Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire are gaining momentum, with plans for the Mano River Union (MRU) to hold a senior-level meeting to promote electricity interconnection, probably in Abidjan in June, MRU secretary-general Saran Daraba Kaba told African Energy. There is growing support for development of interconnections between the four states as part of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), Guinean finance minister Mohamed Diaré told a 4 April Belgium-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce meeting in Brussels.

Having suddenly declared force majeure in Guinea, nearly six months after the US Department of Justice launched a corruption probe into its partner Hyperdynamics, Tullow is playing up its transparency credentials. Its annual report published on 24 March includes project-by-project reporting of payments, making it the first oil company to disclose such detail in every country in which it operates. The significance of this is huge. The American Petroleum Institute (API) in September 2012 sued the US Securities and Exchange Commission in an attempt to avoid disclosing project-level payments, and API members are lobbying against tougher reporting standards in the EU and elsewhere.

Hyperdynamics Corporation said on 12 March that Tullow Oil had declared force majeure over its Guinea acreage. The announcement followed a guilty plea by French national Frédéric Cilins to obstructing a US criminal investigation in connection with a bribery probe into how Beny Steinmetz’s BSG Resources (BSGR) acquired mining rights in Guinea.On 30 September, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) issued a subpoena asking Hyperdynamics, the original licence holder, to produce documents relating to its business in Guinea. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a similar subpoena in January this year.

Violent protests have again broken out in Conakry over power cuts as the government struggles to fund badly needed repairs to generation and transmission infrastructure. State utility Electricité de Guinée (EDG) said the latest problems were caused by damage to one of Conakry’s main transformer substations, which had led to power cuts in 13, mainly outlying, districts of the capital. “This transformer is a transformer substation. It’s different from the little distribution transformers situated in the districts whose capacity is no greater than 160kVA,” an EDG official explained.

Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz and three fellow directors of his Guernsey-registered BSG Resources (BSGR) have filed a damages claim against London-based Global Witness at London’s High Court over violations of the Data Protection Act (DPA), following a decision by the UK Information Commissioner. They say that the NGO’s refusal to disclose personal information obtained during a long-running investigation of BSGR’s acquisition of mining rights in Guinea breaches their human and data protection rights. The dispute centres on BSGR’s controversial 2008 acquisition of the Simandou iron ore deposit in south-eastern Guinea, the largest undeveloped reserve in the world.

Houston-based Hyperdynamics has warned of renewed cash problems as legal costs related to its Guinea operations loom. Tullow Oil took over as operator in the country’s offshore acreage earlier this year and will carry Hyperdynamics for up to $100m on its share of costs of a well planned for H1 2014, but the company is in dispute with AGR Well Management over cost overruns from the Sabu-1 dry well drilled in 2011, and is also under investigation by the US Department of Justice over potential breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (AE 263/18).

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.

Hyperdynamics said on 30 September the US Department of Justice had issued a subpoena asking it to produce documents relating to its business in Guinea. “The company understands that the DoJ is investigating whether Hyperdynamics’ activities in obtaining and retaining the concession rights and its relationships with charitable organisations potentially violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or US anti-money laundering statutes,” Hyperdynamics said. Guinea’s resource contracts have been under scrutiny since President Alpha Condé took office in December 2011, and US investigators are taking the lead in another high-profile case.

The West African Power Pool is seeking expressions of interest from consultants to audit the project financial statements for a study on a proposed 225kV interconnection between Guinea and Mali. The audit, funded by the African Development Bank’s African Development Fund soft loans arm, will establish the financial position of the project in 2013 and 2014 and will ensure that resources are being used appropriately. Bids are due by 9 October.

The African Development Bank board has approved a loan and grant totalling $16.66m for the Conakry Electricity Network Rehabilitation and Extension Project (Prerec2). The project will help to improve the governance and commercial management of Electricité de Guinée (EDG), to support the government’s efforts to reform the sector, and to extend the electricity distribution network to 12 neighbourhoods in the Ratoma and Matoto municipalities in Conakry. The project is a follow-up to Prerec1, which the bank said had significantly improved power supply to 30 other neighbourhoods in the same municipalities.

Following riots over power shortages, the government has signed a $10m contract with Aggreko for 50MW of short-term thermal power for Conakry. Electricité de Guinée director-general Nava Touré said the six-month contract was the only way to calm rising social tensions in the capital. In early August, demonstrators set up roadblocks, burned tyres and halted traffic to protest at the government’s failure to meet its promises to improve electricity supply. Security forces intervened to restore order and at least ten people were injured.

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.

A source at the presidency has told African Energy that President Alpha Condé and his advisers were discussing a new attempt to privatise Electricité de Guinée (EDG). A management contract for its predecessor company Société Guinéenne d’Electricité was granted in 1994 to Electricité de France (EDF), Hydro-Quebec International and Saur, but they pulled out in 2001, complaining that the government of late president Lansana Conté had made no serious response to their turnaround proposals.

Ethnic clashes in the Nzérékoré region in mid-July that left at least 58 people dead and 160 injured have somewhat overshadowed recent protests against the lack of power. In a speech to the nation in January 2013, President Alpha Condé promised to roll out an emergency plan to improve supply to the capital by the middle of the year. The aim was to increase thermal capacity to improve supply until planned hydro projects come on stream. When Condé came to power in December 2010, Guinea had available capacity of only around 80MW. Efforts to add 100MW of short-term thermal capacity and another 240MW of new hydro have not gone smoothly, but reliable power supply will be critical if Guinea is to realise plans to develop the economy by exploiting the country’s mineral wealth.

A 24 May case management conference heard initial submissions in a tripartite case pitting SCS Corporation against AGR Well Management and drilling company Jasper Offshore. Hyperdynamics subsidiary SCS alleges that AGR – introduced by joint venture partner Dana Petroleum – caused the project to overrun and costs to balloon through inefficiency and incompetence. Singapore-based Jasper, which AGR contracted separately to undertake the drilling, has counter-claimed against AGR for $10m in outstanding invoices. SCS seeks indemnification of $47.3m, having paid AGR $107.6m for the project, while leaving $19.2m in an escrow account pending resolution of the dispute.