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Concerns persist that delays to gas field developments, and construction of the pipeline infrastructure needed to support them, will leave Algeria’s customers short of gas in years to come. But Sonatrach’s announcement of a construction start for the GR5 pipeline is a positive step forwards, writes Selwa Calderbank in Algiers

Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas and Pura Vida Energy have decided not to enter into the next phase of the Mazagan permit and have agreed to withdraw from the block. Freeport will give Pura Vida $7m in cash and a quantity of drilling equipment as settlement for the second well obligation under their January 2013 farm-in agreement. A first well drilled on the permit in 2015 failed to find hydrocarbons (AE 307/18). Pura Vida said it intended to focus on its Nkembe Block offshore Gabon, which contains the Loba discovery, and had shipped the equipment there.

Namibian observers have been looking with interest at the second entry to the offshore of UK oil giant BP, which in March took a 30% stake in Serica Energy’s Licence 0047

Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan narrowly avoided being ejected in a ‘palace coup’ in August. While he remains the only figure capable of keeping the country’s rival political forces together, he is in a weak position and has been undermined on all sides as a strengthened federalist movement, responsible for the shut-in of most oil production in the eastern province of Cyrenaica, tries to bring down the current institution-building and constitution-writing process. Together with groups in the provinces of Fezzan and in the Jebel Nafusa mountains south of Tripoli, it intends to blockade oil terminals and pipelines to prevent the domination of the government by the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Justice and Construction Party (JCP), allied to armed militias from Misratah, which emerged after the civil war as a dominant military and political player.

Nigeria’s Oando plc has won shareholder approval to sell its gas and power, downstream, and energy services businesses. A shareholders meeting on 7 December approved plans for a rights issue to raise up to N80bn ($402m). Oando paid $1.5bn to acquire ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian operations in July 2014 in a bid to expand its upstream operations, but its cashflow has been hard hit by the lower oil price. The company, which is listed in Johannesburg and Lagos, while its upstream arm Oando Energy Resources is listed in Toronto, also won approval to issue N40bn of shares from its unissued share capital to swap debt for equity under agreements with two shareholders, Ocean and Oil Development Partners and QPR Limited.

Seeing big upside in its Kwanza Basin pre-salt play offshore Angola, US independent Vaalco Energy, announcing its 2011 results, said it “believes it will have a new partner for Block 5 in 2012”

Shell/BG Kenya has given Fugro a contract for a seabed seeps survey to detect natural leakages of hydrocarbons. Fugro said the seeps survey complemented a recent seismic exploration programme. The Fugro Discovery will arrive in Kenya this month and the survey will take about four weeks to acquire. A handful of wells drilled offshore Kenya in recent years have so far failed to find commercial hydrocarbons.

Woodside Energy and its partners announced a final investment decision (FID) for the Sangomar field development at a signing ceremony in Dakar on 14 January. The FID comes after the government granted a 25-year exploitation authorisation on 8 January, while Woodside has executed the purchase contract for the FPSO facility and issued full notices to proceed for the drilling and subsea construction and installation contracts. First oil is targeted in early 2023.

Denver, Colorado-based Strata-X Energy has received official approval for its environmental management plan (EMP) for a planned coalbed methane (CBM) drilling programme of up to 20 wells. With approval of the EMP, the company said it could now move forward with a planned two-well drilling campaign on its Serowe project in the Kalahari Basin, which has a prospective resource of 3.3tcf. ASX-listed Strata-X said it would finalise contractors in mid-December and drilling was planned to start in late January.

Range Resources has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the autonomous Republic of Puntland government for the Nugaal Basin Offshore Block in the Indian Ocean

Eni started gas production from the Sankofa field in the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) integrated oil and gas project at the beginning of July. The field will provide 180mcf/d for at least 15 years, which Eni said was enough to convert half of Ghana’s power generation capacity to gas.Production started from two of the four deep-water subsea wells connected to the John Agyekum Kufuor floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

One year after the official declaration of liberation from the Qadhafi regime, National Oil Corporation (NOC) has demonstrated its ability to return production to pre-conflict levels and to maintain it there.

African Petroleum Corporation announced on 18 October that it had lodged Request for Arbitration documents with the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) 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

The traditional flow of smaller international oil companies (IOCs), many listed on junior markets, that for many years typified the Tunisian upstream has slowed in recent years. Among the few recent success stories has been Dutch-registered Mazarine Energy, which is looking to develop oil and gas finds on the Zaafrane permit in central Tunisia, which it operates with state Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap) and local private company Medex as partners (AE 300/16). According to executive chairman and founder Edward van Kersbergen, Mazarine and Etap have now advanced plans to develop their first discovery, as a precursor to developing a cluster of fields.

Algeria and Tunisia are moving forward with an oil and gas exploration partnership first mooted in April 2003 when state companies Sonatrach and Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap) created Numhyd, a 50/50 Jersey-registered joint venture (AE 65/15).