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Following promising results from its first well in the semi-autonomous republic of Puntland, Canada’s Horn Petroleum has begun drilling the Shabeel North well on the Dharoor Valley Block.

Having lifted force majeure, BP has started preparations to resume exploration (AE 232/1). Algeria’s Sonatrach also plans to restart exploration soon.

In the latest scandal to hit Namibia’s highly politicised oil sector, petroleum commissioner Immanuel Mulunga has admitted to taking money from entrepreneur Knowledge Katti, writes Our Windhoek Correspondent

In another effort to make common cause by wielding their huge muscle in the international market, Sonatrach and Gazprom have entered talks to engineer swaps that will allow Algeria to arbitrage higher prices and buoyant demand in Asia, while Russia maintains its hold over European customers at the same time as building market share in the east.

The World Bank Group (WBG) is supporting a major $250m electricity grid improvement project with a $200m loan. The Electricity Network Reinforcement and Expansion Project (Enrep) forms part of the government’s ambitious Growth and Transformation Plan, which aims to add 276,000km of power lines and 8,000MW of installed capacity by 2015.

Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) has launched its first licensing round since the early 2011 overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, offering 15 exploration blocks in the Mediterranean Sea and Nile Delta.

The award of a consultancy contract for Kenya Pipeline Company’s new Mombasa-Nairobi products pipeline is welcome news as a range of problems hamper efforts to reduce the region’s fuel supply bottlenecks, writes Kimemia Mugo in Nairobi

Still licking its wounds from the YPF nationalisation in Argentina, Spanish major Repsol has unveiled its Strategic Plan for 2012-16, focused on high growth in the upstream, maximising the return of downstream and liquefied natural gas, building its financial strength and providing competitive compensation to shareholders.

Libya’s new openness to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology has the backing of the interim administration. Speaking at London’s Chatham House on 18 May, interim prime minister Abdur Rahman Al-Keeb said companies offering such technology would be welcome in Libya.

A London court hearing has thrown light on the relations between a frontier exploration-focused international oil company (IOC) and an African business partner, who helped deliver up three highly prospective blocks that were later farmed out to a bigger player.

Eni has discovered 50tcf of gas reserves in Mozambique and plans to make the final investment decision on the development “over the next 18 months”, the Italian giant’s chief executive Paolo Scaroni said in Vienna on 13 June (AE 229/13, 228/17).  

Shares in temporary power solutions company APR Energy continue to trade at more than 25% below their March peak, although the London Stock Exchange (LSE)-listed firm has released some positive figures and deal flow data.

World Bank Group (WBG)’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has agreed to invest €28.1 ($35m) in Thika Power Ltd to help develop an 87MW heavy fuel oil plant near Nairobi.

Elections to the constituent assembly, which will appoint a new executive and a 60-person committee to write post-Qadhafi Libya’s constitution, will now take place on 7 July.

President Goodluck Jonathan will submit the long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill to the Nigerian Senate by the end of this month, petroleum resources minister Diezani Alison-Madueke told journalists at the fifth Opec Seminar in Vienna on 13 June.