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SDX Energy has announced a gas discovery with the KSR-14 development well on the Sebou permit in Morocco, and an oil discovery with the Rabul-2 well in the West Gharib concession in Egypt. The Rabul-2 well encountered 31 metres of net heavy oil pay across the Yusr and Bakr sand formations, with an average porosity of 20%. The well will be completed as a producer in the Bakr and connected to the central processing facilities at Meseda.

Ministers from Uganda and Tanzania have met for talks aimed at advancing the East African crude oil pipeline project, which has made little progress since its formal launch in August 2017.The 25 January meeting agreed that a host government agreement for the project should be signed by the end of June detailing the rights and obligations of the parties – the two governments and the upstream partners Total, CNOOC and Tullow Oil.

Having suddenly declared force majeure in Guinea, nearly six months after the US Department of Justice launched a corruption probe into its partner Hyperdynamics, Tullow is playing up its transparency credentials. Its annual report published on 24 March includes project-by-project reporting of payments, making it the first oil company to disclose such detail in every country in which it operates. The significance of this is huge. The American Petroleum Institute (API) in September 2012 sued the US Securities and Exchange Commission in an attempt to avoid disclosing project-level payments, and API members are lobbying against tougher reporting standards in the EU and elsewhere.

Afren has named former Roc Oil chief executive Alan Linn as its new chief executive. Linn takes over from senior independent director Toby Hayward, who has been acting as interim chief executive. Roc was taken over last year by Fosun International subsidiary Transcendent Resources. On 30 April, Afren announced a pre-tax loss of $1.955bn for 2014, compared to a $140m profit in 2013, and the company warned on 11 May that it would miss the interest payment on its 2019 bonds as talks continue on a restructuring agreement with lenders.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia’s government is expected to revise the hydrocarbons law, which was passed in 2005 (Law 05-07) as a liberal document drawn up by then energy minister Chakib Khelil, but was then revised to take on a much more nationalist tone. Another revision, in 2013, disappointed international oil companies (IOCs) looking for more reasons to invest in Algeria, where IOC participation is restricted to 49% of a project’s equity and other terms are seen to strongly favour the government.

Niger Delta Exploration & Production (NDEP) plans to raise $450m through a share offer, CEO Layi Fatona told the company’s annual general meeting in Lagos on 19 September. The first tranche of $200m is expected to be raised by year-end from either local or international markets and will fund the acquisition and development of oil fields in Nigeria. There is no date set on when the remaining $250m will be sought, but it could be used to fund the company’s possible entrance into South Sudan and Zambia, he said. FBN Capital and Chapel Hill Denham have been appointed as financial advisors.

Operator Noble Energy has made an oil discovery with the Carla South exploration well in Block I. Partner PA Resources said the well had reached a total measured depth of 3,660 metres, encountering ten metres vertical thickness of net oil pay in good quality sandstones at the target level. Following completion of logging operations, the well is being side-tracked to an adjacent target.

Citadel Capital’s upstream oil and gas arm, National Petroleum Company (NPC), has increased production from the Shukheir Bay field, 125km north of Hurghada on the western coast of the Red Sea, by 1,700 b/d

France’s Technip has been awarded a lump-sum contract by Noble Energy to develop the Aseng field, located in Block I offshore Equatorial Guinea, at a water depth of approximately 1,000 metres. Technip, which is listed on Paris’ Euronext market, will carry out engineering, supply, installation and pre-commissioning of the 30km flexible pipe system, including risers, flowlines and jumpers.

Controversial South African businessman Moto Mabanga has failed in his bid to win more money from Ophir Energy for helping the company to secure acreage offshore Tanzania

African Petroleum says it is preparing to launch a formal arbitration process in its dispute with the government over blocks A1 and A4. Government officials say the licences expired in September 2016 and have not been renewed, but African Petroleum says the formal termination procedure has not been followed. In April, the Oslo-listed company said it had agreed heads of terms for an unnamed company to take a 70% stake in the Gambian blocks and its Senegal licence, but in July it said it had allowed the exclusivity agreement to lapse “to provide flexibility in government discussions” over the Gambia blocks, and to enable it to talk to other potential suitors for Senegal.

Fighting has continued to threaten oilfield security in South Sudan’s main oil producing states of Unity and Upper Nile in recent weeks, but production has remained more or less steady at about 165,000 b/d, according to oil industry sources. Government oil sales, meanwhile, have increased by 1m barrels a month. The government closed a tender on 7 May for the sale of 3.8m barrels of Dar Blend crude from Upper Nile. Four contracts were awarded: one of 600,000 barrels and three of 1m barrels. The 600,000-barrel contract was won by Glencore.

Still in expansion mode despite the global downturn, Italy’s Eni has returned to Gabon, acquiring six new exploration licences covering more than 8,000km2 offshore and onshore.

Cairn Energy has submitted a three-year evaluation work plan to the government of Senegal and selected the Ocean Rig Athena drillship for an initial programme of three firm and three optional exploration and appraisal wells, with drilling starting in Q4 2015.Cairn estimates that last year’s SNE-1 and FAN-1 oil discoveries and the currently identified prospects and leads have an estimated mean risked resource base of more than 1bn barrels. The Ocean Rig Athena is drilling the Vali-1 well for ConocoPhillips in Angola’s Kwanza Basin, which spudded in April.

Edinburgh-based Bowleven on 1 June announced the start of drilling on the Zingana exploration well on the onshore Bomono permit, the first of two wells planned for this year. Zingana is located 20km north-west of Douala, and will target a Paleocene-aged three-way dip closed-fault block that was partially penetrated by shallow wells drilled in the 1950s. The well will be drilled to a target depth of around 2,000 metres.