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Less than a year from elections, numerous candidates are eyeing up the prize of taking over from President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Is anyone listening to National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Mustafa Sanalla? He has issued repeated appeals to the international community to change its approach to the crisis in Libya to help his institution to better carry out its functions and to protect the interests of the Libyan people.At Chatham House in January, he described NOC as “the best guarantee that Libya will remain as a unitary state” and called for the international community to support its independence.

The purchase of BG Group by Royal Dutch Shell confirmed predictionsthat the falling oil price would trigger a spate of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the upstream industry. It points to a need for even the biggest players to build scale in developing their natural gas trade; for Shell, BG’s assets in Australia and the Atlantic Basin (Brazil) will help to secure a dominant position in Asian and other key markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Spectrum has begun the first of three multi-client 3D seismic acquisition programmes offshore Gabon in preparation for future licensing rounds. On 31 December, Spectrum started acquisition of the 10,000km2 Gryphon 3D survey in southern Gabon. Spectrum said the survey had attracted strong industry funding and was expected to be completed in early Q3 2017. A further 5,000km2 3D survey over open acreage in northern Gabon, and an additional 3,000km2 3D survey offshore central Gabon will start in Q1 and Q2 respectively. Gravity and magnetic data will also be acquired.

As African Energy editor Thalia Griffiths leaves to explore new opportunities, colleagues asked for her take on developments after 23 years leading the publication. For all the tragedies like the current Ethiopian conflict, she sees real hope for a better future on a continent where, in many places, governance has improved and previously marginalised populations are becoming empowered to enact positive change.

The Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy has awarded contracts for domestic gas development projects to three of the 14 companies who bid last year in a tender for projects to utilise gas from the Rovuma Basin development.Norway’s Yara International was granted an allocation of 80-90 mcf/d of gas to produce 1.2-1.3m t/yr of fertilisers and 30MW-50MW of power. Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary Shell Moçambique BV was granted 310-330mcf/d of gas to produce 38m b/d of liquid fuels (diesel, naphtha and kerosene) and 50MW-80MW of power.

The timing of the official commissioning of the 650,000 b/d Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemical Plant on 22 May said as much about local political sensitivities as it did about the facility’s undoubted importance for the Nigerian energy sector.

The final COP28 communiqué included – for the first time – a commitment to eventually phase out fossil fuels, going beyond previous declarations that focused on coal. However, there are few signs that Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members and their Opec+ allies, led by Russia, have any intention of allowing their core source of revenues to disappear anytime soon. So what can we learn from recent statements by oil producers – including Opec+’s quota commitments at a meeting on 30 November – and from leaks and comments made during COP28?

As hydrocarbons prices have pushed upwards after their slump, a degree of future planning has returned to the global gas market. New liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects are in prospect, led by Australia and the United States, but with a few schemes in Africa. In Mozambique’s Rovuma Basin, a final investment decision (FID) on Coral LNG, led by Eni and ExxonMobil, is expected by end-2017, for exports to Asia from the early/mid-2020s. As the industry builds up, Mozambique expects a big domestic dividend, with the Rovuma Basin also supplying domestic gas-to-power (GTP) projects.

Local content provision has long been a hot topic in the oil and gas industry, but many delegates at the 3-4 October Africa Investment Exchange: Nairobi event were surprised at how far the issue could generate controversy and block support for electricity projects. Several African delegates spoke of building local content into projects to drive industrialisation that, in turn, will improve living standards and stimulate demand for power. But one major funder insisted their institution could not support projects that created “market distortions” contravening the European Union’s standard procurement procedures.

Now West Africa’s second biggest economy after Nigeria, Ghana is in a strong position to benefit from the region’s new oil boom. So far, Ghana has the advantage over its neighbours in terms of discoveries, with production from the Jubilee field, further finds in development, and more exploration under way. While the oil has been flowing for more than a year, gas development is lagging badly behind, but with elections due in December, opposition presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo has a clear vision for the kind of economic development he wants from Ghana’s oil revenue. He sees potential to turn Ghana into a regional manufacturing hub.

A commercial agreement on the joint exploitation of hydrocarbons between Angolan national oil company Sonangol and its Congolese equivalent, Cohydro, has sparked controversy in Kinshasa. Key provisions within the agreement remain unclear, and there are fears the deal will reduce Democratic Republic of Congo’s access to potential offshore reserves. The Angolan and Congolese authorities first agreed to look for ways to jointly explore for oil and gas in the Zone d’Intérêt Commun, a 10km offshore corridor covering Angolan blocks 1, 14, 15 and 31, in 2007. But given DRC’s limited access to the sea, and Angola’s determination to maximise its own access to potential oil fields, the stakes have been high and progress has been commensurately slow.

The Government of Southern Sudan will not compromise in negotiations with the north over the status of Abyei, and is prepared to take up arms again if the impasse continues

The issues that African Energy covers have risen much higher up the global agenda than seemed likely when the first issue was published in April 1998, when global concern about sub-Saharan Africa’s struggle to provide electricity to hard-pressed populations and industrial users, and the continent’s potential to provide energy to a fast-changing global economy driven by growth in emerging markets, seemed considerably less than now.

While there is still much more exploration work to be done, Kenya’s discovery of oil is important for more than just national pride. The find, announced in April by Block 10BB operator Tullow Oil, is a significant stabilising factor for regional development as it enables the East African Community (EAC)’s main economic and political power to take a seat at the table alongside its hitherto luckier neighbours.