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Uganda is phasing out its costly diesel-fired emergency power, replacing it in the short term with heavy fuel oil (HFO) and in the longer term with hydro and small amounts of co-generation from sugar plants (AE 149/6).

B2Gold Corporation has given Caterpillar and Barloworld a contract to supply 7MW of solar power at the Otjikoto mine, 70km north of Otjiwarongo in the Otjozondjupa region. Cat photovoltaic solar modules will be used to reduce reliance on a heavy fuel oil plant used to power the mining facility. Barloworld is supplying engineering, procurement and construction services for the project. Installation of the system is under way, with completion of the project expected in early 2018.

Tunisian-Algerian joint venture Numhyd has given Romania’s Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) a drilling contract for up to two offshore wells, one firm and one contingent. Drilling operations will be carried out with GSP Jupiter, a cantilever-type mobile offshore drilling unit, which is under preparation for the contract in Limassol, Cyprus. Numhyd was established in 2003 by Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières and Sonatrach who each own 50%. The venture carries out exploration and production of oil and gas in Tunisia and Algeria.

As the economic powerhouse of southern Africa, with a legacy burnished by its emergence two decades ago from apartheid, South Africa is expected to take a leading role in the continent’s politics. Through players such as African Union secretary-general Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the expansion of its corporate presence north of the Limpopo, SA is doing just that. Its ambitions are huge: for example, taking a lead in developing the Inga hydroelectric resource in Democratic Republic of Congo. But concerns that high political ambitions are often tainted by low economic motivations have become pervasive during Jacob Zuma’s presidency, emerging again in Central African Republic.

Ahmed Nakkouch, founding head of Morocco’s biggest private developer and a former head of state utility Office National de l’Electricité, is retiring from Nareva. He will be replaced by 46-year-old Aymane Taud, a director of Nareva’s parent company Société Nationale d’Investissement (SNI) since November 2006. Taud was appointed head of SNI’s fisheries companies Marona and Arpem in mid-2015. He came to SNI after heading BMCE Capital Conseil.

GE Oil & Gas opened a new deep-water service centre in Takoradi port on 22 March to support Eni’s Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) project and other deep-water offshore projects in Ghana. The facility has a 1,600m3 indoor test area capable of testing three subsea trees simultaneously, and 4,000m3 of indoor and outdoor storage. GE, which won a contract in 2015 to supply subsea and turbomachinery equipment for the OCTP project, said the facility would create jobs and support the local supply chain and small and medium-sized enterprises

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Petroleum has signed a reconnaissance licence for the 3,433km2 Méditerranée Ouest area offshore northern Morocco. The agreement was signed in Casablanca at a ceremony attended by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. Mubadala’s other African interests are limited to a 20% stake in Ophir Energy’s Tanzania Block 7 and 20% in Libyan onshore Block 103.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has signed grant agreements for Gambia, Mali and Sierra Leone under the Emergency Regional Programme for Improved Electricity Supply Facility. Gambia will receive $31.9m, Mali $54.34m and Sierra Leone $21.8m. Ecowas commission chairman Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo said the support, granted in response to requests from the three countries, would ensure uninterrupted power supply by 2015. All three countries need to improve transmission infrastructure to benefit from the development of the West African Power Pool.

Ocean Rig has secured a new contract with Eni for the drillship Ocean Rig Olympia to drill offshore Angola starting in Q3 2015 for a minimum of eight months, with a total contract backlog of about $91m. Eni has also extended a contract for the drillship Ocean Rig Poseidon for a further year until Q2 2017, with total contract backlog now standing at about $367m.

Having emerged from its elections in May – the first since the death of prime minister Meles Zenawi, who dominated its politics in the last two decades – and with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front remaining intact amid some cautious generational change, Ethiopia’s leadership is determined to accelerate openings to investment and consolidate the country’s position as the political and economic dominant force in the Horn of Africa. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has surprised some observers by reinforcing his position at home, continuing the Meles legacy but in his own style; his government will continue to promote the ‘developmental state’ policies that have delivered 10%-plus annual growth in the last decade, to drive Ethiopia towards middle income status by 2025.

African Minerals Ltd, formerly Sierra Leone Diamond Company, has acquired 11.425m shares in Baobab Resources, a mining company listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) with operations in Mozambique.

Houston-based Hyperdynamics Corporation has raised $30m through a private placement with US investment management firm BlackRock.

SBM Offshore has received an extension of two years for the operating contract of the Serpentina floating production, storage and offloading vessel from ExxonMobil in Equatorial Guinea, with options to extend for a further three years.

Elenilto is part of Israeli businessman Jacob Engel’s Russia-focused real estate company Engelinvest. It has some history in the West Africa mining sector but no apparent oil exploration expertise.

Another crisis is brewing as IOCs are told to comply with ever more exacting financial and operational conditions, writes John Hamilton in Tripoli