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On 10 July, NamPower and Angola’s Empresa Nacional de Electricidade signed a memorandum of understanding in Menongue, in Angola’s Cuando Cubango Province. NamPower has agreed to supply electricity to towns and settlements in southern Angola, upgrading supply in Calai, Cuangar, Dirico and Micuso in Cuando Cubango, and extending supply to an additional 20 settlements in the province.

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote signed a $650m loan facility with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) on 14 July for his $6.5bn oil refinery project. The signing took place in Abuja during the Cairo-based bank’s annual meetings. The 650,000 b/d Dangote refinery is under construction in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos State, with start-up due in 2019. The project aims to end Nigeria’s long-standing fuel supply problems, halting dependence on imports and supplying regional markets.

Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation and Cambridge Industries Energy signed a $120m agreement on 5 January to build a 50MW waste-to-energy plant in Addis Ababa on a turnkey basis.

Nigeria is preparing to launch a debut global bond that will underline the country’s rehabilitation in international markets and, more generally, highlight the growing attraction of so-called frontier markets for fixed-income and other investors.

Toshiba Transmission & Distribution Systems (India) (TTDI) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kenya Power for a pilot project aimed at decreasing distribution losses on the national grid. The project will install a new TTDI-manufactured transformer, called an amorphous distribution transformer, in the distribution network, as well as solid insulated switchgear assemblies and gas insulated transformers. “As the network grows in tandem with the rapid increase in the number of customers, we experience both technical and commercial losses. We are focused on bringing down the system losses from the current 19% to single-digit figures in the medium term,” said Kenya Power managing director and chief executive Ben Chumo.

Parliament has passed a law setting the terms for oil exploration and production. Mines Minister Kalombo Mwansa told Reuters the petroleum exploration and production law had been sent to acting President Rupiah Banda to be signed.

Elected amid economic crisis, new French President François Hollande has not been a charismatic popstar candidate, but his down-to-earth style and softly, softly approach could still bring reform

The Kenya Climate Innovation Center (CIC) has been inaugurated in Nairobi. It is expected to support up to 70 sustainable climate technology companies within five years by offering financing and services, and aims to employ 4,600 people directly and 24,000 indirectly over ten years

Every country along the North African littoral from Morocco to Egypt has got at least one refinery project in planning or on the go.

Another year and thoughts turn to the potentials – be they 39GW, 44GW or 50GW – of the Congo River’s Inga hydroelectric resource, or of oil plays in the Albertine Graben, where Tullow Oil’s Ugandan field on the other side of the lacustrine border will come on stream this year

Under pressure from the oil price slump, the government has taken heart from the dollar’s rise against the euro. Banque d’Algérie (BdA) governor Mohammed Laksaci said on 19 March that, while foreign reserves continued to fall, the decline was manageable, with total reserves at $178.9bn at end-December, compared to $185.3bn at end-September 2014. However, monetary officials have told African Energy that much of the reserves base is illiquid, and Algeria’s cushion against further external shocks may be less comfortable than thought.

A donors’ conference in Abidjan on 30 November pledged $436m of financing for the resettlement element of Niger’s flagship Kandadji dam scheme. Nearly 50,000 people in 24 villages will be affected by the development, which aims to irrigate more than 45,000ha of land to improve food security for Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries with one of the highest rates of population growth.

The much-anticipated partial float of the naira, introduced from 20 June, reflected a concession by President Muhammadu Buhari, who had resisted devaluation as he did during his first stint as president in the 1980s. Buhari was forced by deteriorating economic conditions and declining confidence to listen to markets. African Energy hears that concerns over the naira and other issues have led to the World Bank Group, a key guarantor of the liberalised generation and distribution system, making quiet threats to stop guarantees.

China’s Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting is scheduled to start 2D seismic data acquisition in blocks L4 and L13 on behalf of Dubai-based Zarara Oil and Gas on 19 April

Off-grid solar provider Persistent Energy Ghana (PEG) is seeking to quadruple its customer base by year-end, despite the many challenges presented by a new market. “In Ghana, there are approximately 5m people off grid. If we only reach a tiny percentage of them, we will hit our targets,” PEG chief operating officer Nate Heller told African Energy. The company, owned by the US’ Persistent Energy Partners (PEP), has been active in Ghana since 2013, but its history goes back to 2009, when chief executive Hugh Whalan set up Energy in Common, a non-profit solar energy company in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania dedicated to micro-financing of renewable projects.