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Personalities remain a key factor in shaping a continent trying to emerge from lost decades of ‘big man’ politics. While the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) made much of efforts to create a post-conflict ‘developmental state’ in the last two decades, modern Ethiopia was fashioned in the image of the late Meles Zenawi, who harnessed an intolerant, Tigrayan-dominated political system to a rigid but fast-growing (if unbalanced) economy.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s first months in charge have been marked by hectic regional diplomacy that points to a realignment of ties that, in part, reflect the tensions surrounding water use along the Nile, as well as the benefits of closer integration. This has included Ethiopia agreeing three potentially major maritime transport deals: to jointly develop Port Sudan with Sudan; to take a stake in Djibouti’s largest trading port; and to acquire land at Kenya’s Lamu Port.

The Djibouti government on 22 February cancelled a 30-year contract with Dubai’s DP World to manage the Doraleh Container Terminal (DCT). DP World had been active in Djibouti’s port since 2000, but Gulf involvement in Djibouti and other neighbouring countries has gained more serious traction since the launch in 2015 of the military campaign in Yemen, which is a short hop away across the Bab El-Mandeb Strait. DP World held 33% of DCT after winning the formal concession in 2006.

Delays in finalising Corbetti Geothermal Company’s plans to sell up to 500MW of geothermal power to Ethiopia Electric Power’s grid and hold-ups in major Kenyan schemes that seek to harness the Rift Valley’s huge resources have underlined the slow pace of projects harnessing energy from the earth’s core in eastern Africa. For all the efforts to develop independent power projects and the support of leading multilaterals and initiatives such as the Geothermal Risk Mitigation Facility (GRMF), only the Olkaria complex in Kenya has been exploited so far on a large scale.

Ethiopian authorities say they have averted a planned armed attack on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project under construction on the Blue Nile near the Sudanese border. Deputy government spokesman Zadig Abrha told the state-owned Fana Broadcasting Corporation on 1 March that 20 members of the Benishangul Gumuz People’s Liberation Movement (BPLM) had been apprehended as they were heading for the dam site.

Energy will represent the bulk of a €200m ($226m) package from the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) to finance Eritrea’s National Indicative Programme (NIP) for 2014-20. The package approved on 17 November by the 28 European Union member states earmarks €170m for energy projects, while the remainder will finance programmes to improve governance and strengthen public administration capacity. The adoption of the NIP highlights the EU’s interest in investing in a country that is a major source of migrant flows to Europe, by funding infrastructure projects that can improve conditions for growth and employment.

Eritrea is seen as one of Africa’s tougher jurisdictions, but this has not stopped the EU’s European Development Fund (EDF) committing to finance an innovative photovoltaic (PV) solar power system, involving energy storage using batteries. An Italian consortium led by Enertronica, in partnership with Rossi Impianti, has won a tender to design and build the plant. Terms of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, which is valued at around €1m, are to be finalised with the government over the coming months, Enertronica project manager Antonio Bonanni told African Energy.

The Canadian junior has ambitious plans to expand in sub-Saharan Africa, where its Kenyan block award has already generated more than the usual interest, writes Eleanor Gillespie

A look at the Gulf oil investors and companies investing in Africa

Eritrea, a country with more than eight decades of exploration history but not much recent success, has assigned two offshore blocks to an Eritrean/Chinese joint venture called Defba Oil Share Company. According to a release from the Eritrean Information Ministry, Defba has been set up

The World Bank Group has approved $17.5m in additional financing for the Power Distribution and Rural Electrification project, as part of broad-based support for economic growth through rehabilitation of the electricity distribution network and generation plants.

As intrepid IOCs, most of them minnows, dip a toe into Ethiopia and Eritrea, and make plays to secure potential future reserves in Somalia and its autonomous territories, the Horn may yet prove to be the last productive frontier in the annals of African oil search. African Energy last issue reported from fractured Somalia’s Puntland territory. Below, Eleanor Gillespie analyses E&P prospects in Ethiopia and Eritrea, while Nadine Marroushi reports on developments in Somaliland.

One of the world’s poorest countries needs a major oil find to help kick-start its economy. In additional content for subscribers to electronic editions, African Energy looks at some economic and political issues in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and provides an update on oil exploration blocks in the fractured state of Somalia and its territories.

Fiercely independent Eritrea is going it alone in the hunt for new players, following the departure of the last international oil company to explore in a country which, despite being off most IOCs’ E&P scanners, has been attracting explorationists since the 1920s, writes Eleanor Gillespie.