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Cairn Energy has announced that Sir Bill Gammell will retire as non-executive chairman at the annual general meeting on 15 May. He will be succeeded by Ian Tyler, who joined the board as a non-executive director in June 2013. Tyler was chief executive of Balfour Beatty from 2005 until March 2013, and holds a number of other non-executive positions including non-executive chairman of Al Noor Hospitals Group and Bovis Homes Group, and non-executive director of Cable & Wireless Communications and BAE Systems.

Total has pulled out of the Eni-operated offshore Block 15/06, selling its 15% stake to Sonangol E&P for $750m. “The sale of our interest in Block 15/06 is in line with Total’s global strategy to actively manage its portfolio and focus its investment capability on core assets in which it has more material interests, such as Block 17 with the CLOV project currently under development and the future development of Kaombo on Block 32 in Angola,” said senior vice-president Africa Total Exploration and Production Jacques Marraud des Grottes.

AIM-listed Tower Resources signed a production-sharing contract (PSC) on 15 September for the shallow-water Thali Block in the Rio del Rey Basin. Tower has a 100% interest in the block, which was formerly known as Dissoni and licensed to Total and Pecten. The work programme for the initial exploration period of three years calls for geological and geophysical studies, 100km2 of 3D seismic acquisition and a commitment well with a minimum financial commitment of $13m. Two optional renewal periods of two years will each require an exploration or appraisal well with a minimum $5m commitment.

Libya will allow UK-based supermajor BP to go ahead with its planned deep-water offshore drilling which it plans to begin this July, despite questions which have been raised about the safety of the technology

Victoria Oil & Gas (VOG) plans to bring the first of its two new wells on production by the end of September, and is planning to explore for more gas in a much larger area of the Douala Basin acquired from Glencore and Bowleven.VOG produced 14.6mcf/d in Q2, which was sold in Douala within a price range of $9-$16/mBtu. Chairman Kevin Foo told the Oil Capital conference in London on 5 September the company was targeting production of 100mcf/d by 2021, compared to Douala region gas demand of more than 150mcf/d.

The Ministry of Energy has granted Tap Oil a 12-month extension of the initial exploration period under the petroleum agreement for the Offshore Accra contract area, allowing extra time to drill a well.

Operator Perenco has announced that the Sputnik-1 well, targeting a pre-salt structure in the offshore Arouwe Block, has encountered non-commercial hydrocarbon pay in up to 300 metres of net sandstone reservoir. The Vantage Tungsten Explorer drillship drilled Sputnik-1 to a final depth of 4,868 metres in water depths of 1,023 metres. The rig will now leave the block, and the results of this well will be incorporated into wider understanding of the region, Perenco said.

Total started up production on 29 December from the Egina field on OML 130. At plateau, the Egina field will produce 200,000 b/d of oil, which represents about 10% of Nigeria’s current production, posing a potential challenge for the production cuts agreed by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in December. Under the 1.2m bbl agreement, Nigeria is expected to keep oil production, excluding other liquids, at 1.738m b/d.

With the threat of another pipeline shutdown averted, South Sudan’s oil production is expected to increase from about 180,000 b/d to 200,000 b/d in the coming weeks, and to at least 250,000 b/d by year-end, according to oil industry sources in Juba. During a one-day summit in Khartoum on 3 September with South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, Sudanese leader Omar Hassan Al-Bashir agreed to reverse his decision, announced on 9 June, to stop receiving, processing and transporting crude from South Sudan within 60 days. Under pressure from oil companies and foreign governments, Bashir had already twice delayed the anticipated shutdown, originally scheduled for 7 August, to 22 August and then to 6 September.

Egypt-focused SDX Energy has signed non-binding heads of terms with Circle Oil to acquire the troubled company’s Egypt and Morocco assets. The agreement, announced on 11 January, has a 30-day exclusivity period. “Circle’s assets present an attractive opportunity to add material production and reserves at an attractive price,” SDX chief executive Paul Welch said in a statement. Circle has the producing Sebou permit and the Lalla Mimouna permit in Morocco, and the Al Amir and Geyad permits in Egypt’s Gulf of Suez, but has run into substantial financial difficulties due to payment arrears built up by Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation.

Eni spudded the B1-16/3 exploration well in contract area D of the offshore NC41 area in the Mediterranean north of Tripoli on 4 January. The area was granted to Eni North Africa under the EPSA IV contract model signed with National Oil Corporation (NOC) in June 2008.The well will be drilled in water depths of 156 metres, about 5km north of the Bahr Essalam gas field. NOC said it expected the well to be drilled to a total depth of 3,007 metres

Following Dragon Oil’s decision to drop its bid for Bowleven on 26 March reported a narrowing pre-tax loss for the six months to 31 December of $5.495m and a loss per share of $0.02; Nigerian conglomerate Oando is increasing its upstream activity, with three rigs now in operation and a fourth due in service by year-end

Sound Energy announced on 8 June that it had submitted a development application to the Ministry of Energy for the Tendrara gas discovery in eastern Morocco. The application for the Phase 1 development of Tendrara covers the technical and commercial aspects of the field development plan and the outline of the development area. Sound expects the discovery to produce some 60mcf/d of natural gas, to be produced through a future 120km spur to the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline (GME), which runs from Algeria’s Hassi R’Mel fields to Spain.

Delays to Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC)’s fourth offshore licensing round are due to “some technical and housekeeping reasons”, according to TPDC officials. But delays in shaping policy are weighing on operational issues, and best guess, TPDC managing director Yona Killagane said in early September, is that the round will be “pushed up to November 2012 at the earliest, if the parliament approves a new natural gas policy in its October session”.

ExxonMobil has expanded its presence in the Walvis Basin by signing agreements for four new blocks adjacent to the maritime border with Angola. The company announced on 24 April that it had signed an agreement with the government and the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) for blocks 1710 and 1810, and farm-in agreements with Namcor for blocks 1711 and 1811A.The blocks extend from the shoreline to about 215km offshore in water depths of up to 4,000 metres.