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Chevron subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company has given Sapura Energy Angola a contract for the provision of the semi-submersible tender-assisted drilling rig Sapura Jaya. The contract covers provision of the rig and drilling services for two years starting in Q2 2020, with a further two possible six-month extensions. Chevron operates Block 0 offshore Cabinda, which contains the Mafumeira field development, and Block 14, which lies west from Block 0.

Finland’s Wärtsilä announced on 29 July that it will supply two 34SG engines with combined capacity of 19MW to the Borg El Arab gas power plant, owned and operated by Kahraba, part of Egypt Kuwait Holding, one of the largest private electricity service providers in Egypt. The order was placed in June. The existing plant comprises three Wärtsilä 34SG engines with combined capacity of around 9MW. The new equipment will be delivered to the site in January 2020, with operations expected towards the end of the year.

Royal Dutch Shell has acquired blocks 2913A and 2914B in the Orange Basin from Signet Petroleum, which is 42% owned by AIM-listed Polo Resources. Shell has bought Signet’s 90% interest in the blocks, with National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia retaining its 10% carried interest. The acreage borders Shell’s Orange Basin Deep Water Block off the west coast of South Africa, where the company acquired 8,500km2 of 3D seismic last year and is looking for a farm-in partner. Signet announced on 12 February that it had concluded a transaction for the sale of its interests “to a major international oil company in a confidential transaction”.

It hardly rates on the scale of the drama that a courageous Tunisian population delivered to the world in ousting Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but manoeuvrings by members of the former presidential circle to allow them to profit handsomely with little effort from the award of contracts for a gas-fired

The passing of founding president Robert Gabriel Mugabe is another step in the rites of passage towards what over 15m Zimbabweans hope will eventually become a secure and sustainable economy and society. However, the 95-year-old autocrat’s death offers no solutions for reversing economic decline or for easing political tensions, as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) calls for mass protests to remove President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.

As Tanzania’s energy crisis deepens, US developer Symbion Power has taken over the 120MW Ubungo power plant, which has been idle for nearly three years. Ubungo was previously owned by Dowans Holding, whose controversial contract was terminated in August 2008.

Tullow Oil has announced that the Tweneboa-3 appraisal well in the Deepwater Tano licence encountered gas condensate in high-quality sandstone reservoirs, confirming the Greater Tweneboa Area resource base potential.

Simba Energy says production-sharing contracts (PSCs) for its three blocks have been approved by the government, but National Assembly approval is still needed before operations can begin.

The government has published its long-awaited hydrocarbons law N° 15/012, setting out a simpler legal framework for the upstream oil and gas sector. No new licences have been awarded since 2010 while the new law was being drafted, and the process has been held up by disagreement between the national assembly and the senate. Under the new law, published on 1 August, exploration contracts are to be awarded through a tender process on the basis of technical and financial criteria established by the cabinet.

Efforts to establish a national unity government, agreed in principle by negotiators on 17 December, are foundering. United Nations Security Council resolution 2259, which endorsed the political agreement brokered by UN Support Mission in Libya chief Martin Kobler, gave a nine-member Presidency Council (currently based in Tunis) 30 days to form an administration and gain the ratification of the rival House of Representatives (HoR) and General National Congress. These two bodies will eventually become the parliament and State Council.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that the Department for International Development (DfID) would merge with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in September is more than an institutional rearrangement of the international relations machinery in post-Brexit Global Britain. The move has been long promised, and Johnson says it will strengthen the United Kingdom’s ability to project itself abroad as a force for good.

Oando has denied reports that it plans to sell its Oando Energy Services (OES) drilling subsidiary as it finalises the purchase of ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian assets by Oando Energy Resources (OER). “We wish to explicitly state that OER has successfully acquired all funds required to complete the acquisition, and is awaiting the consent of the minister of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum,” Oando said in a statement on 19 February. Oando announced on 31 January that the company had secured the $1.66bn necessary to conclude the acquisition and was extending the completion date to 28 February.

Operator ADX Energy spudded the Sidi Dhaher well on the Chorbane permit near Sfax on 26 August. 

There may be strong economic arguments, as well as the ethical objections raised by campaigners, why development finance institutions (DFIs) should no longer focus on supporting extractives-led growth. A Chatham House research paper* asks whether such models of development are still appropriate as the global economy reduces its carbon dependency. Discussion of the paper at the Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy conference in Oxford on 26-27 September tested the thesis made popular among DFIs during the long commodities boom that exploiting natural resources could end aid dependency and drive socio-economic development.

Opposition from local authorities to UK private equity investor Actis’ planned takeover of French operator Veolia Environnement’s electricity, water and sanitation concessions in Morocco may be explained in part by a shift in political and popular opinion away from privately financed projects and concessions back to a greater role for local politicians and the state. Morocco is not alone in this: public/private partnership models that give public bodies, and the politicians who lead them, more control are increasingly in vogue.