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The 20MW Windiga solar scheme is progressing towards financial close during the summer, Windiga Energy president and chief executive Benoit La Salle told African Energy. He said construction was planned to start in Q3 this year. Windiga has been developing the project in Zina, Mouhoun province, since the company was established as part of miner Semafo’s corporate social responsibility policy in 2010. The project suffered some delay as a result of political upheaval in Burkina Faso, but the pace of investment is picking up with BioTherm Energy planning solar plants at Pâ and Bobo-Dioulasso.

Paul Kunert, formerly of Globeleq, has joined UK-based start-up Africa Power Corporation as chief operating officer. APC, led by James Pockney, is fundraising before investing in African power assets in a business model that will involve a London Stock Exchange listing.

Operator ExxonMobil and its partner Sterling Energy have opted to relinquish the Ampasindava Block following a detailed subsurface reassessment of the prospectivity. Sterling said the production-sharing contract was in phase three of the exploration period, which was due to expire in July 2016. ExxonMobil had been planning a deep-water well on the Sifaka prospect, but drilling was repeatedly postponed amid the island’s political crisis. A 1,314km 2D seismic acquisition programme on Ampasindava was completed in December 2013.

When, in December 2008, power was transferred from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to the rival National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a hotly contested election that came down to a few hundred votes, Ghana showed a political maturity that bodes well for the future.

Plans by Kosmos Energy and partner Cairn Energy to drill a well next year in a Moroccan-licensed block in the Western Sahara continue to provoke intense interest among oil companies excited by the disputed territory’s offshore potential, as well as political debate among the traditional protagonists. The territory is Moroccan-controlled, but officially under United Nations mandate, and debate centres on a legal opinion issued by UN general counsel Hans Corell in 2002, which stated that exploration and extraction of mineral resources in Western Sahara would be illegal “only if conducted in disregard of the needs and interests of the people of that territory”. This has allowed Morocco’s Office Cherifien des Phosphates to maintain output from its Phosboucraa subsidiary, which is a major employer in the region. However, the Corell judgment – which one official told African Energy, “we’ve all been re-reading recently” – has been generally interpreted as excluding new E&P work.

Johannesburg-based African International Energy says the Ministry of Energy has granted it two

Canada’s Sea Dragon Energy has farmed down a 45% stake in the gas-prospective South Disouq concession in the Nile Delta to US privately owned explorer IPR Energy Resources. Sea Dragon said that Dallas-based IPR had agreed to carry the cost of the first-phase commitment well subject to a cap as well as fund a share of the remaining work programme and pay $1.9m of signature bonus. In return, IPR will gain a 45% non-operatorship interest in the 1,275km2 permit, awarded to Sea Dragon Energy in April 2013 following a bid round organised by Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company.

Sonelgaz subsidiary Compagnie d’Engineering de l’Electricité et du Gaz has cancelled a E290m contract with a German consortium to construct a fully integrated solar module factory in Algeria. It notified the Centrotherm Photovoltaics AG and Kinetics Germany GmbH consortium of its decision on 13 June. In a formal statement, issued under the German securities trading law, Centrotherm gave no reason for the cancellation but said it was “examining” its “effectiveness and significance”.

Ireland’s Petroceltic International has announced that well AT-4 on its Isarene permit in the Illizi Basin confirmed the presence of a gas column

Zesco is seeking proposals from consultants for the organisational redesign of the utility. Zesco is looking to restructure in order to rationalise labour utilisation and improve cost efficiency.

UK temporary power provider Aggreko has signed a three-year contract to provide a 200MW diesel power plant at Dema to cover the shortfall of power from the drought-hit Kariba dam. The company said a contract had been signed with Sakunda Holdings, which will provide fuel for the plant. Zesa Holdings gave Sakunda a contract to provide the plant in December.

Contracts must be concluded to show that renewable energy (RE) schemes are more than hot air, African Energy wrote last year. More solar and wind projects were being tendered in Morocco and South Africa’s new-found enthusiasm for RE would be confirmed if the much-anticipated first round of its Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPP) was a success (AE 215/24).

Salvador Namburete has been appointed president of the new Mozambique arm of a major Portuguese bank, the former energy minister told African Energy on 8 June. Pending a formal announcement, he declined to say which bank. Namburete joined the government following Mozambique’s 2004 general and presidential elections; he left in the reshuffle that followed President Filipe Nyusi’s victory at the polls last October 2014. Namburete received a lifetime achievement award at the Africa Energy Forum in Dubai. Several leading Mozambicans have senior posts in local banks.

The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) is requesting expressions of interest for the Zimbabwe-Zambia-Botswana-Namibia (Zizabona) transmission line project. Finance is being provided by a grant from the African Development Bank. Work will be awarded in three separate tenders.

Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has invited bids by 3 January for the refurbishment of generators and ancillary works for the 18MW El Kansara hydropower plant in the northwestern region of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra. The contract, to be financed from a loan provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for ONEE’s hydro rehabilitation project, will entail the supply and installation of new rotor windings, new structures and instrumentation for both generators as well as the disassembly and reassembly of rotor windings for both generators, and cleaning and maintenance of parts