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LNG projects have faced a buffeting amid the security crisis in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region. While the timeline for Eni’s 3.4m t/yr Coral South floating LNG project looks robust, bigger schemes face further delays as a shaken gas sector takes account of an insurgency that can no longer be ignored – and which also poses questions about stability in southern Tanzania as a new leadership there makes soothing noises about investment, write James Gavin and Marc Howard.

CWP Global’s 30GW Aman project is projected to cost about $40bn. It will be located on a desert site of approximately 8,500km2, comprising 18GW of wind and 12GW of solar, a water desalination plant and an installation to synthesise hydrogen and ammonia. When complete, there will be nearly 2,000 wind turbines spaced 3km apart, with a solar park covering 28,000ha of non-arable land. Construction will extend over an eight- to ten-year period. The power will be transmitted via medium- and high-tension lines to feed the electrolysers on the coast.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and its partners announced a final investment decision (FID) on 18 June for the Area 1 Mozambique LNG project. The project will be Mozambique’s first onshore liquefied natural gas development, initially consisting of two LNG trains with total nameplate capacity of 12.88m t/yr processing gas from the Golfinho/Atum fields in Offshore Area 1. The project has secured 11.1m t/yr of long-term LNG sales to clients in Asia and Europe, representing 86% of the plant’s nameplate capacity, and will also have a significant domestic gas component.

A contractor working for Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has been killed in an attack in northern Mozambique as the company moves closer to a final investment decision on its liquefied natural gas (LNG) project with two more sale and purchase agreements (SPAs).Anadarko said two related attacks occurred around 20km from the construction site on the road from Mocimboa da Praia to Afungi at about 5pm local time on 21 February. The first involved a convoy where six contractors sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

French developer Akuo Energy announced on 19 November the full commissioning of the 50MWp Kita solar PV plant in the Kayes region. The project, described by Akuo as “the largest operational solar park in West Africa”, has been developed under a 30-year build, own, operate and transfer concession with a 28-year power purchase agreement with Energie du Mali.  

The military junta that deposed President Alpha Condé remains insistent that it’s taking a ‘business as usual’ approach as it starts discussions over the formation of a new government, but the outlook for Guinea’s political landscape, and the energy sector, remains up in the air, writes David Slater

Mali’s economy and finance minister Aloussény Sanou has told other government departments their expected funding has been blocked. The move comes after the World Bank suspended its International Development Association (IDA) credits and other facilities to the country.

According to the most widely accepted version of still hazy events, President Idriss Déby Itno (IDI) was injured on 17-18 April fighting rebels near Mao in the Kanem region, some 300km from N’djamena; he was pronounced dead early on 20 April. The military leader, who became president in 1990, had just been re-elected (with 79.32% of the official vote) for a sixth term in a vote on 11 April.

Dubai-based Amea Power has secured funding for the 26.6MW solar PV project from the International Finance Corporation and others.

The final result could take days more, but leaks from initial counting suggested incumbent president Alpha Condé will win the 18 October election without a need for a second round, having polled far more heavily than his 11 opponents.

A new off-grid power plant at Resolute Mining’s Syama gold mine in the Sikasso region of Mali is now operational, with 20MW of heavy fuel oil (HFO) capacity and a 10MW/5MWh battery energy storage system (Bess) online, the Australian mining company told African Energy.

Scaling Solar’s Gorou Banda development is one of four planned generation projects expected to be commissioned within the next five years that will add 250MW of capacity, alongside 200MWh of planned storage capacity.

After a decade of conflict that has threatened to submerge the Malian state, the ‘transition government’ of prime minister Moctar Ouane had a big agenda to fulfil before elections were due to held in Q1 2022.

Coming only days after France committed troops and its air force to overturning dramatic advances made by Islamist militants in Mali, the 16 January attack on a gas production facility at In Amenas, in south-eastern Algeria, underlined the security threat and political volatility that now blight the Saharan/Sahel region. Never during the 1990s conflict with radical Islam did a major Algerian hydrocarbons facility face such attack.

The suicide bombing of a gendarmerie barracks in Ouargla and shock jihadist victories in Mali are fuelling unease about the future of the vast Sahara-Sahel region, adding to the uncertain political mood in Algiers, write Oualid Khelifi and Jon Marks