Search results

France’s Maurel & Prom (M&P) and Canada’s Wentworth Resources have signed a gas sales agreement with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), covering the long-term sale of natural gas from the Mnazi Bay and Msimbati fields. The gas will be supplied via the government-owned and operated Mtwara to Dar es Salaam pipeline and Madimba central processing facility, which are scheduled to commission in Q1 2015. For the first eight months of the agreement, the companies will supply up to 80mcf/d, increasing over time to 130mcf/d for up to 17 years. First delivery is expected between 22 January 2015 and 22 April 2015 at a fixed price of $3/mBtu, equivalent to roughly $3.07/mcf.

President Mahamadou Issoufou on 2 April inaugurated the 80MW first phase of the Gorou Banda diesel power plant, to improve supply to Niamey and reduce dependence on the interconnection with Nigeria. The project was financed by the government, the West African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank at a cost of CFA75.4bn.The plant, located 5km south of Niamey with four 20MW diesel turbines, was built by Sinohydro, which started construction in April 2013. The construction of lines and substations was carried out by Chinese company TBEA.

Aseng Production Company Ltd, a joint venture between SBM Offshore and state oil company GEPetrol, has secured a

Questions of greater social equity and sustainable development, more stringent governance and controls over globalisation widely discussed in a world looking to emerge from coronavirus are all ideas that President John Magufuli has worked into Tanzania’s policy mix since taking office in November 2015. Magufuli has built up popular support with his assaults on international capital, donor interference and even Beijing and the burden of Chinese debt. However, Tanzania’s experience suggests that good ideas do not make for good policy if they are wrongly implemented.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) on 17 February issued an inaugural Swedish krona green bond, its second such transaction under the new Green Bond Framework after a $500m three-year bond launched in October 2013. The Swedish krona market is one of the largest for green investments and the bond, which raised around SEK1bn ($150m), is a five-year floating rate transaction maturing on 24 February 2019. The transaction was fully subscribed by SPP, a company wholly owned by Swedish life insurance and asset management company Storebrand. Nordea Markets was the sole lead manager.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and its partners have signed another gas sales agreement as they prepare for a final investment decision on 18 June. Anadarko announced on 13 May that Mozambique LNG1 Company, the Mozambique Area 1 co-venturers’ sales entity, had signed a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Japan’s Jera and Taiwan’s CPC Corporation for delivery of 1.6m t/yr of LNG for 17 years. The latest SPA brings total long-term agreements to 11.1m t/yr, of the development’s total nameplate capacity of 12.88 m t/yr from two initial trains.

While considerable investor attention is focused on gas-fired power plants, and Mozambique is seeking to tap more of its hydroelectric potential, Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) and associated private investors are focused on developing at least 930MW of new coal-fired capacity. All these projects “have to be done off-balance sheet as EDM doesn’t have the financial strength”, the utility’s director of market operations, Aderito Manso de Sousa, said in Johannesburg on 15 March.

The 750MW Kafue Gorge Lower project has been delayed by the need to change the project site, according to the International Finance Corporation (IFC). “Our team has… discovered that the site that has been planned for a long time is technically more complex than the site which is a few hundred metres down stream, (which) has now been selected

The Sudanese Thermal Power Generating Company has contracted Germany’s Lahmeyer International to assist as the technical consultant in selecting an engineering, procurement and construction contractor for a planned 300MW gas-fired power plant in the south of Khartoum. Lahmeyer, an independent business unit of Tractebel Engineering, announced on 16 November that it was helping to evaluate commercial bids from four shortlisted bidders for the Albagair open-cycle gas turbine plant.

The Djibouti government on 22 February cancelled a 30-year contract with Dubai’s DP World to manage the Doraleh Container Terminal (DCT). DP World had been active in Djibouti’s port since 2000, but Gulf involvement in Djibouti and other neighbouring countries has gained more serious traction since the launch in 2015 of the military campaign in Yemen, which is a short hop away across the Bab El-Mandeb Strait. DP World held 33% of DCT after winning the formal concession in 2006.

On 8 October in London, BP group chief executive Bob Dudley, Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi and National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Mustafa Sanalla signed a letter of intent paving the way for Eni’s purchase of a 42.5% interest in BP’s exploration and production-sharing agreement (EPSA). 
The EPSA includes three contract areas, two in the onshore Ghadames Basin and one in the offshore Sirte Basin, covering a total area of around 54,000km2.

Documents disclosed in the ongoing legal battle between Arandis Power and NamPower over the tender award to Xaris Energy have brought to light how the electricity sector has been paralysed by contradictory policy and competing financial agendas. The controversial Xaris scheme, promoted as a fast-track solution for the country’s looming energy problems, was suspended in 2015 amid concerns about the tender process, but the suspension was lifted in December. The 200MW shortage that Namibia Power Corporation (NamPower) said would cause rolling blackouts in the winter of 2016 did not materialise, but this has not stopped the competing political factions from undermining each other at every opportunity.

ANGOLA: Deep-water rig contract; ANGOLA: Block 31 topsides contract; EQUATORIAL GUINEA: MoU with Gazprom Neft; GABON: Crude output rise forecast; LIBYA: Tatneft tender

Key public and private sector parties have signed a cooperation agreement for the construction of an estimated $6bn natural gas pipeline from northern Mozambique to Gauteng, South Africa. The main signatories are Mozambique’s Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), Profin Consulting, SacOil Holdings and pipeline construction company China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPP).SacOil chief executive Dr Thabo Kgogo described the agreement as a key milestone in the development of the pipeline and distribution project.

GE is supplying UK-based developer Clarke Energy with two of its Jenbacher J420 biogas engines for a new 2.8MW agricultural biogas power project owned by Tropical Power at a vegetable farm near Lake Naivasha. The farm’s biomass waste, including trimmings and unsold vegetables, will be processed in a digester system to create biogas, which will fuel the engines to generate renewable electricity. The new plant will produce enough electricity to meet the farm’s needs and deliver surplus electricity to the local grid.