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Spain’s Cepsa has farmed in to ERHC Energy’s Block 11A in north-west Kenya, taking a 55% operating stake. ERHC retains 35%, while the government has a 10% carried interest up to any declaration of commerciality, and may then acquire an additional 10%. Circle Oil, which introduced ERHC to Kenya and to its Kenya general manager Peter Thuo, has a carried 5% of ERHC’s total interest. A 2D seismic survey of at least 1,000km is expected to start this spring. ERHC awarded a contract in January to China’s BGP.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) on 17 December approved a €24m ($27m) loan for the expansion of the Kribi gas power plant. The expansion project will increase the capacity of the 215MW plant, which has been operating since May 2013, to 340MW. The loan was approved under the AfDB’s New Deal on Energy for Africa initiative, which aims to help achieve universal energy access in Africa by 2030.

The latest development in the campaign to get Ghana and its oil industry partners to disclose details of their contracts illustrates just how haphazard the process can be. As a part of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) filing by Kosmos Energy with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all of the petroleum agreements related to the Jubilee field are now available at the SEC website

France’s Alstom Hydro has been awarded a contract by Duglas Alliance, part of Ukraine’s Dorado Alliance, to supply equipment for the 200MW Sendje hydropower plant, located on the Wele River, 40km from Bata. Alstom will provide four 50MW Francis turbines, four generators, four regulation systems, four excitation systems and a control system to the facility, which is expected to begin operating in mid-2017. The company will also supervise installation and commissioning. Ground breaking at the site took place in February 2012.

African Petroleum Corporation has named Stuart Lake as chief executive, replacing Karl Thompson, who stepped down on 1 February. Lake was most recently vice president of exploration at Hess, and previously spent 19 years with Royal Dutch Shell. African Petroleum reorganised its board last year, removing Frank Timis from the role of non-executive chairman as part of preparations for moving the company’s listing to the main Australian Stock Exchange from the smaller National Stock Exchange. Timis has assumed the role of president of the executive committee, formed to implement board strategy and to exercise the executive powers of the company.

Sri Lankan logistics specialist Hayleys Advantis Group has relocated the 24MW Lakdhanavai power plant from Sapugaskanda to Nyala, in Sudan’s Darfur region, which it said had been without electricity for four months. The plant, comprising four diesel generators, was shipped to Port Sudan then transported 800km by road.

South Africa’s Sasol has announced a joint prefeasibility study for a large-scale gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant, based on gas from the Rovuma Basin. The study, which is being conducted in conjunction with Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos and Area 4 operator Eni, will assess the viability and benefits of such a plant to the region.

Operator ExxonMobil has said it plans to begin drilling its first well offshore Liberia in November (AE 309/13). The Mesurado-1 well on Block LB-13 will target Cretaceous Santonian-age reservoirs. Operations will be based out of Abidjan, in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. ExxonMobil farmed into the block in 2013, taking 83%, but drilling was delayed by the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in 2014. The other 17% is held by Canadian Overseas Petroleum, which is carried by Exxon for its share of the first $120m of drilling costs.

Mineworkers’ pension fund The Metal Industries Benefit Funds Administrators (Mibfa) intends to invest R1bn ($112m) in projects bidding in South Africa’s renewable energy independent power producers procurement programme. The fund will provide debt finance to 10-15 solar or wind projects, administered by asset manager Mergence Investment Managers.

Ghana’s Jubilee oilfield has been plagued by allegations of corruption dating back to beneficial ownership of companies granted licences to work on the giant oil block

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) plans to commission a new 120MW diesel-fired power plant at Kipevu in January

The South African government’s decision to remove its mandate from AES Corporation to develop a long-awaited independent power project (see Power, above), and the rising number of warnings to markets by companies with southern African operations of the potential for losses of earnings due to outages, shows the crisis in the regional electricity supply industry

With tougher anti-bribery legislation in place in the US and UK, local partners have been identified as a key vulnerability. Foreign companies need them to help them navigate the local business environment, especially if it is government policy to develop local content.

The international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has designated Mali as EITI compliant, bringing the total number of EITI compliant countries to 12, including five others in Africa.

Windhoek-based Nabirm Global has given Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA a contract for a proprietary 3D controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) survey over Block 2113A (PEL 58) in the Walvis Basin. Subject to vessel availability, acquisition is projected to take place in Q1/Q2 2020. EMGS chief executive Bjørn Petter Lindhom said the company was working on developing a 2020 multi-client campaign offshore Namibia, which would allow it to deploy a vessel to the region.