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Sub-Saharan Africa’s first gigawatt-scale green hydrogen (GH2) facility is expected to enter a new phase soon African Energy's AIX: Power and Renewables 2022 meeting was told. South Africa's 900,000 t/yr Coega green ammonia plant, being developed by the UK’s Hive Energy and Germany’s Linde, is expected to sign a 20-year offtake agreement imminently with a major anchor client.

Minister of mineral and energy resources Gwede Mantashe said on 7 November the new draft Petroleum Amendment Bill, which is currently before cabinet, would be released for public comment within the next three weeks. The bill was drawn up following criticism of the previous government’s efforts to lump oil and gas with mining in the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) Amendment Bill.

The Zambian government has set up working group led by the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Energy to speed up exploration efforts in areas close to Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was elected president of the African National Congress (ANC) on 18 December, beating rival Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma by only 179 votes, having received 2,449 votes from delegates at the ANC conference held at Kimberley in the Northern Cape. His election saw the value of the rand increase and will be welcomed by many businesses in South Africa, but it remains to be seen how Ramaphosa will deal with President Jacob Zuma, whose role in the state capture scandal has rocked the nation and its economy for the past year

As the hype around hydrogen gets ever louder, governments and developers are putting forward grandiose plans to manufacture green hydrogen – ‘the new oil and gas’ – across the continent. African Energy has been sceptical about the hydrogen boom’s relevance to economies that are hard pressed to finance basic needs, but high hopes are being generated in countries like Mauritania and Namibia, where schemes to install an unimaginable 65GW of hydrogen-driven capacity are promised, writes John Hamilton.

The Ukraine crisis has, once more, thrown the European Union’s dependency on Russian gas into question – creating a political context in which, a senior EU official says, “we have no options but Algeria” to secure steady supply. Major international oil companies (IOCs) see the development of conventional gas fields and Algerian shales – which are recognised as some of the most promising outside North America – as a key to supplying European and wider markets over coming decades.

The imminent launch of Senelec’s strategic plan will show there is still momentum behind the electricity sector’s transformation as the utility commits to a gas and renewables future and its US-backed unbundling opens new possibilities for private investment. However, questions remain about whether the pace of change is sufficient to achieve the government’s objectives, writes Dan Marks.

The most abundant element on earth, hydrogen, already has industrial uses, but it could do much more to transform the global energy mix as industrialised economies and the global south decarbonise. Judged by the welter of governmental and corporate statements, hydrogen is featuring large in the thoughts of planners and project promoters. These range from Chinese hydrocarbons giant Sinopec’s plans to reallocate some of its Rmb87bn ($13bn) cash pile to projects “all along the hydrogen chain” to Australian junior miner AVZ Minerals’ green lithium mine project at Manono in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Chemicals giant Sasol said on 6 October it will lead a feasibility study for the Boegoebaai green hydrogen project. Sasol signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the Northern Cape Development Agency for the study, which will look at the potential of Boegoebaai, in the Namakwa Special Economic Zone, to become an export hub for green hydrogen and ammonia.

Gas-fuelled power projects have an important role to play in Africa, according to African Energy Live Data’s figures. The Africa-wide database lists 313 operating gas-fired plants, with 84,226MW of installed capacity; another 39 plants are under construction (with total 32,933MW capacity) and 156 are planned (66,921MW). The majority are utility-scale facilities supplying national grids; Live Data records 206 of these as operational (75,487MW), 33 under construction (28,754MW) and 119 planned (58,061MW).

The Namibian government is continuing to negotiate a contract with its preferred bidder, Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, for the country’s first large green hydrogen (GH2) project.

Speakers and delegates at the Africa Energy Indaba conference in Johannesburg on 18-21 February were optimistic about South Africa’s prospects. The power sector is in bad shape after years of poor leadership, and many difficult decisions regarding the structure of the industry lie ahead. However, as one industry veteran told African Energy: “You couldn’t pick a better president to face these challenges than Cyril Ramaphosa.”

As South Africa’s 8 May elections approach, troubled utility Eskom has improved its power supply performance to the point where it was able to announce on 29 April that it had gone 36 days without loadshedding. Eskom was forced to implement stage 4 loadshedding in mid-March, cutting 4GW from the grid, but a Winter Plan announced on 3 April aims to avoid outages or at least limit them to stage 1, of 1-2GW.

Dogged by allegations of corruption, a cripplingly expensive build programme, falling demand, and competition from off-grid alternatives, South Africa’s beleaguered utility Eskom suffered a further blow late last month as its credit rating was downgraded by ratings agencies Moody’s Investor Services and Standard and Poor’s (S&P), while Fitch put several ratings on negative watch. The moves followed an earlier decision by S&P to downgrade the sovereign rating and by Moody’s to place the sovereign on review for downgrade.

Vivo Energy and Engen are to combine their two African downstream businesses, creating a giant with 3,900 service stations and 2bn ltrs of storage capacity.