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Dublin-based explorer Petroceltic International is suing two individuals and a Tunis-based law firm over service and consultancy agreements related to its North African activities signed in 2004 and 2005. According to the High Court of Ireland, Petroceltic Isarene – the Jersey-based subsidiary for the company’s Algeria assets – and another plaintiff opened a case on 4 July against Abdelly & Associés International Consultants, its founder Dr Samir Abdelly and a second defendant, Maza Seghir.

Australia’s Cooper Energy has announced plans to sell its Tunisian oil and gas assets so that it can concentrate on Australia. Cooper has interests in three contiguous permits in the Gulf of Hammamet, mainly offshore. The company operates the Bargou permit with a 30% stake, as well as operating Nabeul with 85% and holding 35% in Hammamet.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is considering debt financing to fund the exploration and development of Circle Oil’s operated assets in Morocco and non-operated assets in Egypt and Tunisia. The loan proposal is due to go to the IFC board on 21 June. In its 2012 results announced on 13 May, Circle reported revenue of $73.3m, up 26% over 2011, and cash from operations of $39.3m, up 243% year on year, helped by increased production of Egyptian oil and Moroccan gas, higher market prices, and improved payment receipts from Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. Libya Oil Holdings (LOH)’s 17.75% shareholding in Circle has been frozen since March 2011. Ahmed Kashadah, the head of the Libyan African Portfolio which owns LOH, has asked for the Portfolio’s assets to remain frozen as it is not ready to take on LOH’s management.

Former Addax Petroleum new ventures manager Philippe Probst has been named as interim chief executive of Sweden’s PA Resources as part of a wider board and management shake-up. The Stockholm-based company has acreage in Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea and Republic of Congo. “It is well known that PA Resources has been in a vulnerable financial situation for some time,” the company said in a statement.

Poland’s Kulczyk Oil Ventures (KOV) has agreed to buy Canadian minnow Winstar Resources in a cash and shares deal valuing Winstar at C$112m ($110.8m). KOV is 49.99% owned by Kulczyk Investments, founded by London-based Polish businessman Jan Kulczyk, who owns 10% of Ophir Energy and has been looking for North African opportunities.

Sweden’s Petroskandia has signed a letter of intent with Resource Ventures subsidiary Global Energy Management for the California-based company to earn a 25% stake in the Tebourosouk block in return for exploration and development funding. Tebourosouk is owned 50/50 by Petroskandia and the state Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap).

Germany’s Conergy has received an order from Japan’s Takaoka Engineering Company Ltd to install a 210kW solar PV facility at a Japanese-funded desalination plant in Ben Guardane, to produce around 352MWh/yr of electricity. The plant will consist of 900 Conergy PowerPlus modules mounted on Conergy solar linear systems and 15 Conergy IPG T inverters.

The need for increased security and impact of sovereign rating downgrades by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings due to the political crisis following the assassination of opposition figurehead Chokri Belaïd on 6 February and resignation of prime minister Hamadi Jebali on 19 February – leaving another Ennahda politician, former interior minister Ali Laarayedh, to form a government – will add to the costs of operating in Tunisia, according to international oil companies canvassed by African Energy

The images of grief and riot that followed the assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaïd on 6 February highlight the extent to which the first, and so far most successful, of the Arab Spring revolutions has been put in jeopardy by ideological and factional divisions among the country’s new leaders. The killing was quickly interpreted as marking a violent new phase in a region-wide struggle between democratic modernisers – who include secular politicians like Belaïd and President Moncef Marzouki, but also mainstream figures in the Islamist Ennahda party such as prime minister Hamadi Jebali – and ultra-radical Salafists.

A new 200MW power plant at Bir Mechergua built by the US’ GE is due to start up in June, Tunis Afrique Presse quoted industry minister Mohamed Lamine Chakhari as saying.

The African Development Bank Group is expected to “receive the green light from our governors at our annual summit in Marrakesh in May” to return to its headquarters in Côte d’Ivoire after a decade in which the exiled multilateral has “enjoyed Tunisian hospitality”, AfDB president Donald Kaberuka said.

A second attack in the Algerian ‘hydrocarbons fortress’ and an emerging narrative in which western governments see an ‘arc of instability’ spanning the Sahara/Sahel region means IOCs must reassess their attitudes to regional risk following the traumatic In Aménas gas plant siege, write Jon Marks and John Hamilton.

ADX Energy subsidiary Alpine Oil & Gas has reached agreement for Rift Basin International Corporation to farm into the onshore Chorbane permit, taking 15%. Toronto Venture Exchange-listed Rift will pay $1.2m, payable in stages.

OMV Tunisia is seeking a partner for the offshore Sidi Mansour exploration permit The 6,592km2 block lies in the northern part of the Gulf of Gabes, adjacent to the producing Cercina and Chergui oil and gas fields.

Circle Oil’s Bou Argoub-1 (BAB-1) well on the Grombalia permit failed to find commercial hydrocarbons and will be plugged and abandoned. The exploration well in the South West Belli area of the permit, near the Belli, El Manzah and Beni Khaled fields, started drilling on 30 October.