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President Emmerson Mnangagwa fired energy and power development minister Fortune Chasi on 14 August after only 15 months in office, accusing him of “conducting government business in a manner incompatible with presidential expectations”.

With nearly $220bn in 2022 profits, the oil industry’s so-called Big Five supermajors – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – are sitting on a cash pile as rarely before seen. With significantly expanded capital spending, there will be some eye-catching African upstream deals, but the expectation is that shareholders, rather than resource holders, will be the main beneficiaries of this boom, writes James Gavin with African Energy staff.

A boom is expected for the extractives sector, highlighted by first gas supply from the Coral Sul reservoir off Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado coast, but locals are demanding a fairer share of the benefits and the authorities are struggling to define what they mean by ‘local content’.

Shareholders in London AIM-listed Wentworth Resources have approved a $73.4m takeover by French independent Maurel & Prom (M&P). Some 75.26% of shareholders voted in favour across two polls; a 75% vote was required.

The replacement of long-serving oil minister Gabriel Obiang Lima with Antonio Oburu Ondo appears to have had an immediate impact, with block entries announced on 20 February for two experienced – but relatively small – independents into Equatorial Guinea’s offshore. Further developments are awaited in the ‘last enclave for American Big Oil in Africa’, writes James Gavin with Our Central Africa Correspondent.

Shortly after selling up its Angolan upstream interests, Portugal’s Galp Energia is fielding reports that it wants to sell its 10% interest in Mozambique’s highly prospective Rovuma LNG project.

Algerian state giant Sonatrach has been courting international oil companies to capitalise on the potential to ramp up deliveries to Europe, but African Energy’s soundings suggest there are plenty of reasons for caution, despite the improved investment climate since hydrocarbons sector reforms were unveiled.

A Lagos court ruling against the leadership of ambitious independent oil and gas company Seplat could reinforce concerns that, even with an apparently pro-business president-elect, Nigeria may not prove an easy market for international oil companies.

Savannah Energy has vowed to pursue all its legal options – including arbitration at the ICA in Paris – after Mahamat Idriss Déby’s ‘transitional’ government nationalised the upstream oil assets the UK independent had acquired from ExxonMobil in December.

Recourse to arbitration by Tullow Oil – Ghana’s largest crude producer, along with Dallas-based Kosmos Energy, through their equity stakes in the Jubilee and Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (Ten) fields – underlines a number of difficult issues facing the London (LSE)- and Ghana Stock Exchange-listed company.

UK independent Savannah Energy is moving forward with a $1.25bn plan to acquire a string of upstream assets in South Sudan from Malaysia’s Petronas – a rare case of an IOC stepping into one of Africa’s most challenging political and economic environments, writes James Gavin.

Savannah Energy’s dispute with Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno’s government in Ndjamena has gone cross-border, with diplomatic ties between Chad and Cameroon under stress after the London AIM-listed oil company’s new deal to sell part of its interest in the export pipeline, writes James Gavin.

Australian Securities Exchange-listed Invictus Energy has established the existence of light oil, gas condensate and helium at its Cabora Bassa oil and gas exploration project in Muzarabani, in northern Zimbabwe.

The planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline project continues to face financing difficulties – and the DRC’s hopes that Eacop capacity may be on offer to evacuate its own eventual Lake Albert exports seem overblown – but officials in Kampala are also pushing ahead with plans for a third licensing round and a 60,000 b/d refinery, write James Gavin and African Energy staff.

London AIM-listed Tower Resources has provided a bullish view of its offshore PEL 96 licence, covering activity in blocks 1910A, 1911 and 1912B in the northern Walvis Basin.