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A report prepared by the Petroleum Revenue Special Taskforce was leaked to the press in late October, claiming that $29bn has been swallowed by a natural gas price-fixing scam – allegedly involving Total, Eni, Royal Dutch Shell and state officials – while $6bn/yr was said to go missing annually due to oil theft. Oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke declined to comment on the report.

The World Bank Group’s Inspection Panel (IP) has raised a number of concerns in its investigation of the Bujagali dam project. Groups led by Uganda’s National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) requested an inspection last year (AE 119/23). The project has also been investigated by the African Development Bank’s Independent Recourse Mechanism.

The government will fund a giant 5,250MW hydro project on the Abay River to be built by Salini at a cost of nearly $5bn, writes Michael Wooldridge

Tunur, the UK-based developer of a project to export power generated by concentrated solar technology from Tunisia to Europe, has acquired additional financial backers and is targeting first financial close within 18 months. The company has persisted in pushing forwards its plan despite the political uncertainties of Tunisia’s post-Arab Spring transition and doubts over the concept of export-driven projects in North Africa following the implosion of the Desertec Industrial Initiative last October. It now hopes the establishment of a fully constitutional government will clear away the final hurdles.

Central Bank of Nigeria governor Lamido Sanusi’s crackdown on five prominent banks over alleged abuses, including ramping up share prices and building non-performing loans on transactions involving ‘big men’ cronies, has brought a much-need reality check to the sector.

The newly merged PetroNor E&P has agreed to buy Panoro Energy’s 12.19% equity stake in OML 113 in the Keta Basin offshore western Nigeria, which contains the Aje oil and gas field. Cyprus-registered PetroNor, which completed a merger with African Petroleum in August, plans to take a lead role in progressing the long-mooted development of the field’s gas reserves, eliminating flaring and supplying gas to replace diesel generation in Lagos.

Electricity minister Mohamed Shaker met President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on 8 February to review the final details of the proposed contract with Rosatom to build a 4.8GW nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast at Dabaa, in Marsa Matrouh governorate. While both sides are issuing optimistic statements about an imminent agreement, two strict reporting bans have suggested that other facts about the development have yet to appear in the public domain.

The High Court in Accra on 8 June dismissed an application for an interlocutory injunction to prevent the signing of a concession agreement for the operation and management of Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) by China’s BXC Company. The Millennium Development Authority (MDA), which is responsible for implementing the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact in Ghana, announced the decision on the same day. The MDA said “the substantive matter is to take its normal course”.

In office for just over a year, the Jubilee Alliance government led by Kenyatta and deputy president William Ruto has had a difficult start to its tenure. As well as the trials at the International Criminal Court and accusations of a lack of preparedness in the wake of September’s terrorist strike on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, commentators speak of a spike in corruption since the two assumed office, and scandals certainly seem to have permeated the higher tiers of government.

Compagnie Energie Electrique du Togo (CEET) invites bids by 13 December for the rehabilitation and reinforcement of substations and medium- and low-voltage networks across the country. The contracted work is to be financed from a $35m International Development Association credit approved by the World Bank in December 2017 to reinforce and expand the electricity network and facilitate private sector investment in power generation.

Total E&P Angola has given a consortium of SBM Offshore and APL, part of Norway’s BW Offshore, a letter of award for the engineering, procurement, supply, construction and Installation of the oil loading system for the Pazflor project on Block 17.

South Korea’s SK Innovation has farmed into Kosmos Energy’s Foum Assaka contract area in the Agadir Basin, buying a 12.5% stake from Fastnet Oil & Gas ahead of drilling next year. The deal includes a cost carry for a first exploration well on the Eagle prospect and an appraisal well or second exploration well, plus reimbursement of past costs. A well on the Eagle prospect is expected to spud in late Q1 2014. On completion, the equity split for the block will be Kosmos 39.9% and operator, BP 35.1%, Fastnet’s Pathfinder Hydrocarbon ventures subsidiary and SK 12.5% each, and the state Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines 25% carried interest.

Impact Oil and Gas has extended its Orange Basin presence with a technical co-operation permit (TCP) for the Orange Basin Deep Block off South Africa’s west coast, and has begun acquiring 3D seismic in the Namibian part of the basin.Orange Deep covers 15,474km2 in water depths from 2,700 metres. Impact said the block currently has a limited amount of data but lies along the outer edge of the Orange Basin and could contain deep-water fans similar to those identified in its Namibian Block 2913B to the north.

China National Electric Engineering Company (CNEEC) has given France’s Alstom group electromechanical and technical services contracts worth €50m ($54m) for the 700MW Zungeru hydroelectric power project. Alstom will provide four 175MW Francis turbine generator sets and related equipment and carry out equipment design, manufacturing, supervision of installation, commissioning, testing and site services via its subsidiary Alstom Hydro China. The project on the middle and upper portions of the Kaduna River will be owned by the government, and will be Nigeria’s largest hydropower plant when completed.

Much remains to be done to improve levels of energy access and public services in many countries, but Southern Africa’s generation capacity is undoubtedly growing, according to African Energy Live Data. The new figures – extrapolated from Live Data’s 1,218 detailed entries for the region – show that on-grid generation capacity will have increased by 50% in the decade to 2020 if the potential of the project pipeline reported on the database is fulfilled.