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Société d’Energie et d’Eau du Gabon (SEEG) is rehabilitating the 5MW Bongolo hydropower plant in Ngounié province with the aim of restoring its installed capacity and improving supply in the region. The project, which will cost nearly CFAF7bn ($12.7m) to be financed entirely by the utility, will entail replacing the plant’s five turbines, including automation and control systems, as well as the complete upgrading of units G1 and G2 and all hydro-mechanical structures.

Preliminary construction works for Gabon’s first IPP project are under way following the signing on 27 October of an engineering, procurement and construction contract between project company Asonha Energie and Chinese state-owned contractor Sinohydro. Full construction of the 35MW Kinguélé Aval hydroelectric plant on the Mbei River in north-western Gabon, some 100km from the capital Libreville, is expected to begin early next year once financing has been closed, Mathieu Peller, chief operating officer Africa for Paris-based infrastructure investment fund Meridiam, told African Energy.

Total’s 58%-owned affiliate Total Gabon has signed an agreement with mature fields specialist Perenco to sell its interests in seven mature non-operated offshore fields, along with its interest and operatorship in the Cap Lopez oil terminal.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is considering supporting the construction of the 34MW Kinguélé Aval. The private investment arm of the World Bank disclosed on 18 June that it will propose an A Loan of up to €40m, a senior concessional loan from IFC as implementing entity of the Canada-IFC Renewable Energy Program for Africa of up to $25m as well as risk management products such as interest rate and/or cross currency swaps.

Engie subsidiary Ausar Energy has launched construction of a 400kW solar-thermal hybrid plant at Ndjolé in Moyen-Ogooué province. The plant is the first of eight planned solar hybrid plants with a combined capacity of 2.2MW being developed under an agreement signed between Engie and Gabonese financial institution Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC) in August 2018.

Lagos-based infrastructure financier Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has increased its stake in the Gabon Special Economic Zone (GSEZ) as part of a restructuring bringing in transport and logistics specialist AP Moller Capital as a new investor to expand the project into West Africa. The AFC said the GSEZ had been reorganised into three separate companies: Arise Port & Logistics (P&L), Arise Integrated Industrial Platforms, and Arise infrastructure Services. Arise P&L is now owned by AP Moller Capital, Singapore agribusiness company Olam International, and AFC.

Construction of the 34MW Kinguélé Aval hydropower plant on the Mbéi River in north-western Gabon is scheduled to start in Q2 2020 following the signing of a concession contract in late October. France-based investment fund Meridiam announced on 24 October the signing of a 33-year concession contract with the government for the run-of-river power project, which is to be developed in consortium with state investment fund Le Fonds Gabonais d’Investissements Stratégiques (FGIS).

BW Offshore’s DHIBM-1 well on the Dussafu licence has encountered hydrocarbons in the main well bore. Announcing its H1 results on 30 August, the company said well logging was continuing and a sidetrack well was planned. The main aim of the well, which targeted the Hibiscus prospect, was to find more resources in the Greater Ruche area.

BW Energy has spudded an exploration well on the Hibiscus Updip prospect on the Dussafu Marin permit. Partner Panoro Energy said the well, being drilled with the Borr Norve jackup rig, was the first well in a six-well campaign planned on Dussafu in 2019-20. The Hibiscus Updip well (DHIBM-1) is planned as a vertical well to test the Gamba and Dentale reservoirs at a site about 56km offshore Gabon in a water depth of 116 metres.

Seadrill Partners has secured a one-well contract with Petronas subsidiary PC Gabon Upstream SA for the West Polaris to work offshore Gabon. Work is expected to start in September 2019, running to the end of the year.Petronas operates the Likuale (F14) Block offshore southern Gabon, where the Boudji-1 well drilled in Q4 2018 intersected a 90-metre oil and gas column in water depths of 2,800 metres.

Gabon Oil Company (GOC) has agreed to take a 10% paying interest in the Dussafu production-sharing contract. The state oil company will pay $28.5m, representing its share of past production costs from April 2017 to date.Operator BW Offshore said GOC would contribute to cash calls for the development and production of the field and adhere to the joint operating agreement and lifting arrangements that are currently in force.

Gabon’s Direction Générale des Hydrocarbures (DGH) has insisted “everything is back to normal” following a coup attempt on 7 January. DGH deputy general manager Edgard Mbina-Kombila told a roadshow event in London on 17 January that the closing date for the country’s 12th licensing round had been put back to 30 September following industry feedback suggesting the previous closing date of 22 April was too soon. But the revised petroleum code governing the bid round has not yet been signed into law and bid evaluation criteria are still being worked out.

Gabon Special Economic Zone has issued the first CFAF14.3bn ($24.6m) tranche of its CFAF33bn corporate bond programme, which is intended to finance investment in logistics infrastructure. The facility is guaranteed by Private Infrastructure Development Group member GuarantCo, which said it was the “first ten-year tenor local currency infrastructure bond in Gabon, the Cemac region and Francophone Africa”.

BW Offshore successfully offloaded a first cargo of oil from the BW Adolo floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) on the Dussafu licence on 2 December. A total of 550,000 barrels of oil were transferred from the FPSO to a tanker, which will transport the crude oil to a refinery. The BW Adolo achieved first oil from the Tortue field offshore Gabon on 16 September after completing hook-up of mooring systems and installation of risers and umbilicals.

Norway’s BW Offshore has made a final investment decision for phase 2 of the Tortue development on the Dussafu licence following a successful appraisal programme on the western flank of the Tortue field. Phase 2 includes drilling of four additional horizontal development wells.