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A group led by Tullow Oil is preparing to drill a well on the Ngamia prospect on Block 10BB, launching an exploration programme which plans to build on the company’s Ugandan experience. Africa Oil Corporation president and chief executive Keith Hill said the choice of Ngamia had been a cause for some debate within the joint venture.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company has given a consortium of Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering Company a turnkey contract for the Olkaria I extension and the new

Nigeria's South Atlantic Petroleum (Sapetro) has agreed a farm-in deal for Madagascar's Belo Profond Block, and is predicting "megastructures" in this deep-water acreage. Sapetro will purchase a 90% interest and operatorship from

Chariot Oil & Gas has reprocessed and reinterpreted 2,000km of 2D seismic data on its blocks offshore central Namibia, identifying 11 new leads with 3.7bn bbl gross P50 prospective resources. As a result, the company will increase its 3D seismic programme to 3,500km2 from 2,500km2. On Chariot’s northern blocks 1811 A & B, further geological and seismic work on the Tapir trend has led the company to opt for the Tapir South prospect, rather than Tapir North, as the drilling target with the greatest chance of success.

Economic pressures created by the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings have squeezed payments by the Ministry of Petroleum. President Hosni Mubarak’s fall and the establishment of interim authority under the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) has not had a major long-term impact on production, which has returned to pre-crisis levels. However, tight government finances

Two months after the fall of the Qadhafi regime, security at installations and oil fields is still the main barrier preventing international companies from returning to the country, writes John Hamilton. Libya has a new government and NATO has completed its operations, but international oil companies (IOCs) remain reticent about returning to the country. Many country managers at the North African Oil and Gas Summit

Côte d’Ivoire has escalated a simmering border row with Ghana by demarcating new blocks that overlap with Ghana’s western acreage

With generation capacity finally creeping upwards, the federal government is turning to foreign investors to provide the huge sums needed to overcome crippling power shortages. But targets still remain both ambitious and insufficient, writes David Slater in Abuja

The scale of the Mamba South discovery announced by Italian major Eni wasn’t such a shock after Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s upbeat reporting of its Barquentine-2 appraisal well, which has shown that northern Mozambique could become a major gas producer, just as northern neighbour Tanzania is shaping up to be

Côte d’Ivoire has escalated a simmering border row with Ghana by demarcating new blocks that overlap with Ghana’s western acreage. A map displayed by state oil company Petroci at Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Upstream conference showed atriangle of new acreage offshore eastern Côte d’Ivoire, blocks CI-540, CI-541, CI-542, CI-543, and possibly the ultra-deep CI-544, that appear to stray into areas licensed by Ghana. “The government has directed us to demarcate these blocks. Thisis because of Ghana’s earlier demarcation,” a Petroci spokeswoman told African Energy. “They claimed more than they should by international law. There is a dispute and there are discussions between the governments.”

Though World Bank funding has been secured for exploration drilling, there remains considerable uncertainty over project finance and partnership arrangements to develop geothermal potential, writes Adrian J Browne

Eni has made a major gas discovery with the first exploration well in Offshore Area 4 – and the Italian major is already planning a large-scale gas development (see AE view, below). The Mamba South-1 well encountered 212 metres of continuous gas

China’s Fenxy Mining Industry Limited has won Kenya’s first coal mining licence, for two blocks in the Mui Basin in the Kitui and Mwingi area of central eastern Kenya. The blocks, C and D, were offered in an open tender launched in September 2010.

Data released by the NTC government suggests that the Geneva-based trading company earned over $50m from its crude oil and refined products trades during the civil war, and even though other players are joining the market, Vitol remains a dominant force, writes John Hamilton

After five years of resource nationalism and three unsuccessful licensing rounds, the Algerian government may be preparing to improve commercial terms for conventional oil and gas exploration, and is looking to promote non-conventional projects, writes John Hamilton in Madrid with African Energy correspondents in Algiers