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Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader John Atta Mills has promised to increase generation capacity to 5,000MW from the present 1,600MW if he wins December’s presidential election. Mills made the pledge in a speech to members of the Association of Ghana Industries in Accra.

The African Development Bank announced on 20 December that its board had approved a $50m senior loan to Azito Energie for the 139MW expansion of the Azito gas-fired power plant. The loan will contribute to financing the Azito Phase III project.

Sudan is producing around 522,000 b/d of oil, below its 600,000 b/d target for 2009, but has ambitious plans to raise output to 922,000 b/d within five years, even without developing new fields, as it implements a water injection and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) programme.

The Central Electricity Board (CEB) in June 2017 issued a request for information (RFI) from potential natural gas suppliers to power a 105MW-120MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant; the liquefied natural gas (LNG) import unit would be sited at Les Grandes Salines in the Port Louis harbour area. Mauritius Ports Authority had previously hired the Netherlands’ Royal HaskoningDHV to study possibilities for developing Port Louis as a bunkering and petroleum and LNG hub. The RFI envisaged an estimated 150,000 t/yr of gas arriving in late 2020/early 2021 following completion of a CCGT plant.

On 31 October, Oslo-based Scatec Solar and Norwegian state investment fund Norfund signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Electricidade de Moçambique (EdM) for a 40MWp solar photovoltaic (PV) project near Mocuba in Zambézia province. The project is a trailblazer for Mozambique, Scatec’s chief financial officer, Mikkel Tørud, told African Energy, as the first solar public private partnership (PPP) in the country, and will help catalyse the market for solar power. It is owned by Central Solar de Mocuba, whose shareholders are Scatec Solar (52.5%), KLP Norfund Investments (22.5%) and EdM (25%).

Ghana National Petroleum Corporation is set for major changes, beginning with its conversion into a limited liability company, industry sources told African Energy. It will be able to enforce mandatory relinquishment clauses on any E&P company that fails to fulfil its drilling and investment commitments.

AIM-listed United Oil & Gas has won BP’s backing for a $16m deal to buy Rockhopper Egypt Pty Ltd, which has a 22% non-operated interest in the Abu Sennan concession in the Western Desert. BP will provide a prepayment financing structure of up to $8m, and United and BP have entered into an offtake agreement for United’s future oil and gas production. The balance of the $16m will be funded via an equity placing, of which up to $5m may be taken up by Rockhopper Exploration in United shares.

US minnow Hyperdynamics faces an uncertain future following the failure of a second well offshore Guinea. The company said on 8 September that the Fatala well, which targeted a deep-water fan complex, had failed to find hydrocarbons.Under a one-year licence extension agreement with the government reached in September 2016, the licence was due to expire on 21 September 2017 unless a discovery was made. Hyperdynamics had hoped to be able to drill a follow-up well on the Bamboo prospect, but the company has struggled to raise the funds for Fatala.

A deepening economic crisis has forced the cancellation of this year’s Luanda International Fair (Filda), which had already been postponed from July to November. It will be the first cancellation in 33 years for the event, which was held throughout Angola’s civil war, which ended in 2002. The business weekly Expansão reported that the 33rd annual fair had been cancelled due to the “financial difficulties of the country”, which has been hard hit by a sharp fall in oil revenues.

Canada’s Talisman Energy farmed into Block 4B-10 in mid- 2011, taking 80%. The seller was the British Virgin Islands UK-registered Prontinal, which with its predecessor company #8 Investments Inc had owned the block since the 2002 licensing round. Sierra Leonean petroleum unit sources last spring said that Talisman, which does not have a large Africa footprint following the 2003 sale of its Sudan interests, had bought into the block,but the company declined to confirm this at the time. In 2009,Simco Petroleum Management opened a data room for Prontinal which was attended by some 30 companies.

While North Africa’s popular revolutions focus the world’s attention on too long silent majorities’ demands for a political voice and good governance, conflicts and crises that beset many sub-Saharan polities fester away from the global media’s prying eyes. Chronically unstable these regions might be, but investors keen to book new oil reserves and other resources often overlook political realities, adding to a volatile mix

A four-day hearing opened in London’s High Court on 21 November to decide whether the English courts can hear two legal claims on behalf of over 40,000 Nigerians against Royal Dutch Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria for environmental damage caused by oil pollution in the Niger Delta.The first claim is being brought on behalf of 2,335 individuals from the Bille Kingdom, mostly fishermen who claim their environment has been devastated by oil spills over the past five years.

US independent PanAtlantic Exploration has announced it will take part in the government’s licensing round roadshow events as it seeks farm-in partners for its three offshore blocks. PanAtlantic entered Equatorial Guinea’s Block K in 2010 and also has operating interests in Block W and Block EG-02. The company is offering an inventory of ready-to-drill exploration prospects with estimated resource potential of 3.4m barrels of oil. The blocks are largely covered by 3D seismic, and with regional 2D lines available that tie into nearby fields. The 3D data from EG-02 and Block W were recently reprocessed.

The UK’s Independent Power Corporation Plc (IPC) has launched a new power development company, QG Power Africa, in a joint venture with its existing partner, engineering consultancy Tomé International, and the $250m QG Africa Mezzanine LP investment fund managed by Quantum Global Group’s QG Investments Africa Management. Established to develop power plants across sub-Saharan Africa, QG Power will focus initially on Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. QG Africa Mezzanine will support the joint venture as strategic investor, while Swiss-based Tomé will be responsible for project management and IPC for the development of the power assets.

African Petroleum Corporation has announced an oil discovery with the Bee Eater-1 well, a large step-out drilled 9.5km west of the company’s Narina-1 discovery to test the Turonian fan. The well encountered 48 metres of Narina-equivalent Turonian oil-bearing sandstones out of a 135-metre oil interval.