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Investment bank Renaissance Capital is suing African Minerals in London’s Commercial Court for £25m of unpaid advisory fees relating to a fundraising in 2010. The dispute centres on a £170m cash injection by Chinese state-owned China Railway Materials Commercial Corporation to develop Sierra Leone’s Tonkolili iron ore mine, a deal for which Renaissance Capital claims it is owed substantial fees for facilitating.

The World Bank is considering a $25m loan to support the Sierra Leone Energy Access Project. The appraisal process is expected to be completed by 25 March in time to go before the World Bank’s board for approval on 16 May. The project has been designed to complement the work of the $16m Sierra Leone Infrastructure Development Fund, which was expected to be put to the board in December .

Israeli miner Elenilto has expanded its presence in West Africa, winning the operatorship of Senegal’s Offshore Sud Shallow Block and being shortlisted for a phosphate mining licence in Togo.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved €75m ($100m) of funding to the government of Sierra Leone for its part of the proposed Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea interconnection.

Chevron and African Petroleum Corporation have confirmed the licensing of offshore blocks provisionally awarded in July (AE 238/1). African Petroleum said parliament ratified the award of Block SL-4A-10 on 21 September, while Chevron will operate SL-08A and SL-08B.

Licence awards to unknown companies have caused a storm in Sierra Leone, with government officials blaming a ‘transparent’ process imposed on them by external consultants for the controversy. Thalia Griffiths and Eleanor Gillespie investigate the exploration boom in an emerging Transform Margin play.

Elenilto is part of Israeli businessman Jacob Engel’s Russia-focused real estate company Engelinvest. It has some history in the West Africa mining sector but no apparent oil exploration expertise.

In December 2011, the Sierra Leonean government, through the Petroleum Directorate, issued a call for tender on its third bid round, inviting companies to apply for nine offshore blocks.

President Ernest Bai Koroma is seeking another term in November’s elections in the face of fierce opposition from the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), whose candidate is the former military leader Julius Maada Bio. The SLPP has said it will re-examine and possibly renegotiate all oil and mining contracts if it is elected

Canada’s Talisman Energy is due to spud a well on its Block SL-4B-10 in mid-September, and is finalising a farm-down arrangement to reduce costs.

Sierra Leone has provisionally awarded eight blocks to a mixed bag of bidders following a licensing round which opened in December. A statement from State House on 9 July said the nine blocks on offer had attracted 59 applications.

Frank Timis’ African Petroleum Corporation has announced the provisional award of offshore Block SL-4A-10, along with Kosmos Energy.

The government has ratified an agreement for Canada’s Talisman Energy to take over the operatorship of Block SL-4B-10 (AE 231/13).

Sierra Leone’s much vaunted reconciliation is looking more fragile than ever as November’s elections approach, at a time when – as African Energy’s new upstream oil update table shows – resources companies are expressing more interest than ever in the country’s potential for yielding hydrocarbons and minerals, writes Thalia Griffiths

Some of the names already involved in the Sierra Leone natural resources sector are controversial. Frank Timis’ London AIM-listed African Minerals Ltd (AML) is developing the Tonkolili iron ore project, while his National Stock Exchange of Australia-listed African Petroleum Corporation has offshore exploration block SL-03.