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The World Bank Group’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) said on 31 May that a case brought by Symbion Power Tanzania Ltd (SPTL) and its owners Lord Richard Westbury and Paul Hinks against the Tanzanian government had been dropped. The end of the arbitration, which was registered on 31 May 2019, is another indication that the Tanzanian government is moving to settle high-profile disputes with international companies.

With the start of operations in late May at the 35MW Kahone and 25MW Kael solar PV projects in Senegal, most of the early schemes under the World Bank Group’s Scaling Solar programme are now operating AE 439/17. More are planned around the continent, but the WBG’s International Finance Corporation says it is also looking at ways to replicate the programme for wind energy and mini-grids

The developers behind the 40MWac Khoumagueli solar PV project have signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Electricité de Guinée (EDG). The state utility’s first grid-tied solar project is designed to complement EDG’s nearby 75MW Garafiri hydroelectric power plant, helping to offset the impact of fluctuating rainfall on hydropower generation.

Lekoil Nigeria is one of several Lekoil subsidiaries that also include Lekgas, Lekoil Exploration and Production, Lekoil Management Corporation, Lekoil Ltd and Lekoil 310. The Lagos-based arm is official equity holder for its Nigerian assets, as ‘technical operator’ in OPLs 310 and 325.

The Chinese-owned West African Oil Pipeline Benin Company (Wapco Benin) and the government in Cotonou have announced a construction start for the delayed Niger-Benin Export Pipeline (NBEP), which the partners said had been held up for months by the coronavirus pandemic. The 1,982km, 20-inch diameter pipeline will carry crude from the Agadem Rift Basin (ARB) fields in Niger to Benin’s Atlantic oil terminal in Sèmè-Kraké port.

German development bank KfW has said the Kikagati hydropower plant on the Kagera River, on the border between Uganda and Tanzania, is due online by year-end. KfW has provided a $12.3m tariff top-up for the project through its Global Energy Transfer Feed in Tariff programme that launched in Uganda in 2013 AE 388/7.

Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGCL) on 30 May announced the commissioning date for the 600MW Karuma hydropower project had been further delayed, this time to 22 June 2022. The delay was attributed by UEGCL to faults in installed electromechanical systems.

The Malilangwe Trust and Sustainable Agriculture Technology have set a 30 June deadline for expressions of interest (EoI) in the design, EPC, testing and implementation of a 4.5MWp solar plant in Masvingo Province.

RP Global and OOLU on 24 June announced the launch of a new commercial and industrial (C&I) joint venture solar company called Westa.Solar. The company has already completed its first project, a 500kW solar PV hybrid system for Petrichor Industries in Kano State, Nigeria.

Algeria has long been a major gas flarer but time may be running out for the practice as the EU moves to enforce its carbon border adjustment mechanism, writes Ajay Ubhi. Algeria’s consistently high level of gas flaring could start to threaten its gas export market to the Europe once the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) comes into force.

Tanzania-focused Wentworth Resources recorded strong natural gas demand in the first half of 2021 and increased its average production guidance for 2021 to 70-80 mcf/d from 65-75 mcf/d.

French official private sector support agency Proparco and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) have closed a €178m ($212m) funding package for the Biovea project, which they describe as Africa’s first biomass power plant with grid injection.

The Ghanaian government’s position in the offshore unitisation dispute is that Eni’s Sankofa and Springfield’s Afina fields have identical reservoir and fluid characterises. Springfield was awarded operatorship of the WCTP Block 2 in 2016, in its first upstream operation having previously been focused on oilfield services and fuel distribution and trading.

Six independent power producers (IPPs) selected in a tender last year have been asked to extend their bids once again, this time to October. They had previously been asked to extend them to the end of June. The IPPs had bid prices of only $0.034-38/kWh for wind and solar PV projects with combined capacity of 350MW.

According to deputy foreign minister Deng Dau Deng Malek, the Juba government has started initial planning to build a dam on the White Nile. He told Abu Dhabi daily The National on 24 June that the dam would be used to control the flooding that affects most of South Sudan’s Upper Nile State for six months a year and to generate power. No decisions had been made on the plant’s size or its generating capacity.