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As debate intensifies about what form East Africa’s oil infrastructure should take, Uganda’s government has made its intentions clear by issuing tenders in support of its controversial refinery plans

The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan have agreed (again) to the establishment of a demilitarised buffer zone critical to the resumption of oil exports, but the details have yet to be elaborated. Negotiations in Addis Ababa on 4-5 January reached some conclusions but failed to resolve some critical issues, including the future of Abyei

A move to charge value-added tax (VAT) at 14% on off-grid solar, wind and hydro energy generation equipment and on clean cookstoves with effect from 1 July has caused an outcry from the green energy industry. Bodies including the Africa Minigrid Developers Association (AMDA), off-grid solar body GOGLA, the Clean Cooking Alliance of Kenya and the Kenya Renewable Energy Association have condemned the move. AMDA chief executive Aaron Leopold said the Treasury had ignored the advice of key industry players including the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum.

State utility company Office National de l’Electricité has lined up a E50m ($67.6m) buyer credit to support the construction of a 72MW power plant in the Agadir region to be built by Man Diesel & Turbo.

On 24 May, Italy’s Salini Impregilo announced that it had signed a €2.5bn contract with Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) to build the 2,200MW Koysha dam on the Omo River. The project comprises a 170-metre-high roller-compacted concrete dam with a reservoir volume of 6bcm. It is expected to produce 6,460GWh/yr electricity. The project is expected to be financed by Italian banks and underwritten by Italy’s Servizi Assicurativi del Commercio Estero (Sace). Ethiopian newspaper The Reporter noted in April that Sace had agreed €1.5bn of export credit financing.

ALGERIA: Sonatrach makes two Illizi finds; ALGERIA: Petroceltic raises $120m in share placing; ANGOLA: Sinopec buys overseas upstream assets; EGYPT: Aegean Energy widens horizons; NAMIBIA: Block 1711 extension; NIGER: CNPC to drill again; TUNISIA: Two new licences for Shell; UGANDA: Dominion to drill in June

The Rural Electrification Agency is to invite expressions of interest from consultants and contractors to assist with the Decentralised Renewables Development Programme, which aims to develop an off-grid electrification master plan for the islands on Lake Victoria and pilot net-metering using grid-tie solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. The programme, one of the projects under the country’s Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Programme, is being supported by the African Development Bank, which has provided a project preparation grant from the Strategic Climate Fund.

Upstream operator Sunbird Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Eskom to study the viability of supplying gas from the Ibhubesi field to the 1,300MW Ankerlig power station. “This MoU sets the framework under which Eskom and Sunbird will jointly investigate the development of the Ibhubesi gas project for the delivery of an indigenous gas supply to the energy-constrained west coast of South Africa,” said Sunbird chairman Kerwin Rana. Eskom is keen to convert Ankerlig from diesel to natural gas, and is developing plans to convert the plant from an open cycle to a closed cycle facility.

The board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) decided on 4 September to suspend Liberia for failing to publish its EITI report for the year to June 2016 by the 1 July 2018 deadline. The government had asked to extend the deadline, but the board declined, noting that the request had not been endorsed by Liberia’s multi-stakeholder group (MSG), as the group had not been reconstituted since the end of its term in October 2017.

Soco International has announced that the Baobab Marine-1 commitment well drilled in the Mer Profonde Sud Block in the Lower Congo Basin failed to find hydrocarbons. The well was drilled by the deep-water drillship Noble Globetrotter II on the RR prospect to a measured depth of 3,275 metres, reaching total depth on 25 February. It intersected the target of stacked early Miocene channel complexes, and although good-quality sands were present, no hydrocarbons were encountered, and the well will be plugged and abandoned.

Total started up the Clov development on 12 June, bringing production from Block 17 to 700,000 b/d. After Girassol, Dalia and Pazflor, Clov is the fourth floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit on Block 17 (AE 278/11).The 160,000 b/d development links production from four fields – Cravo, Lirio, Orquidea and Violeta – with 34 wells and eight manifolds connected by 180km of subsea pipelines to an FPSO unit at water depths of 1,100 to 1,400 metres. The FPSO has a storage capacity of 1.8m barrels of oil.

A consortium led by Kenya’s Gulf Energy and Centum Investment Company has won a tender to build a 960MW coal-fired plant at Lamu, the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum announced on 1 September. The consortium also includes China Huadian Corporation Power Operation Company and PowerChina subsidiaries Sichuan Electrical Power Design and Consulting Company and Sichuan No 3 Electrical Power Construction Company. The award was marred by the disqualification of two other Chinese companies after discrepancies were uncovered in the calculation of their bid prices.

Cape Town-based LPG retailer PayGas plans to open six new refilling stations in Cape Town’s low-income townships. The new stations had been planned for the end of May, though timelines are likely to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Chief executive and founder Philippe Hoeblich plans to establish PayGas across sub-Saharan Africa using digital pay-as-you-go technology to permit low-volume purchases.

The government is considering three tariff measures to reduce the impact of Covid-19 on the power sector. African Energy understands that the first is a reduction in the tariff for social customers, the lowest income segment of Electricidade de Moçambique’s (EdM) customer base. This is unlikely to have a significant impact on EdM as social customers only comprise a small proportion of revenues.

Gigawatt Global has secured grant funding from the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) for a feasibility study for a planned 7.5MW solar photovoltaic power plant at Mubuga in central Burundi. USTDA said on 30 March that the grant funds would cover a study of key technical and economic aspects, and environmental and social impact assessments, and provide the necessary analysis for the developers to secure financing. Gigawatt signed a memorandum of understanding with the government for the project in July 2014.