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Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote signed a $650m loan facility with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) on 14 July for his $6.5bn oil refinery project. The signing took place in Abuja during the Cairo-based bank’s annual meetings. The 650,000 b/d Dangote refinery is under construction in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos State, with start-up due in 2019. The project aims to end Nigeria’s long-standing fuel supply problems, halting dependence on imports and supplying regional markets.

Uncertainties within Sonatrach over feedstock supply have erased more than three years of progress towards a formal joint venture agreement between the Algerian authorities and Total on the construction of an estimated $7bn ethane cracker.

The government is planning to revise the country’s oil law, with special emphasis on gas and pipeline regulations and especially cross-border provisions, vital for a landlocked state.

Zwara Oil Refining Company (Zorco) has appointed HSBC as its advisor for the estimated $4bn, 200,000 b/d project, which will be “the first project in Libya to be financed on a commercially structured project finance basis,” according to the influential chairman of Zorco’s parent Tamoil Africa Holding Ltd Ali Shamekh.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the OPEC Fund for International Development are providing loans of $8m each to Quantum Oil Terminal, which is developing a 55,000 tonne petroleum products storage facility near Tema port. The IFC, which signed its loan on 9 June, said the project would help address storage constraints in petroleum products distribution and reduce shortages.Tema oil refinery’s chronic debt problems mean the facility is not always operational, and bulk distribution companies play a key role in importing products and keeping the market supplied.

Faced with a fuel subsidy of $48m a month between January and May, the government has raised the price of fuel. On 12 May, the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) announced a 15% increase in the pump price for petroleum products. “This adjustment is mainly due to the volatility of the kwacha, which resulted in the significant adjustment of the kwacha against the United States dollar,” said ERB board chairman Geoff Mwape.”

Oil exploration in northern Mali was already on hold before the 2012 coup because of the security situation. While activity remains largely suspended, the government has attracted interest in the minerals and hydrocarbons potential from Qatar. “There are still pockets of resistance of certain armed groups in northern Mali. Security isn’t yet restored, we must admit,” said minister for investment promotion and private enterprise Moustapha Ben Barka. But the government is looking to the future, and the minister said he hoped Mali could begin producing oil within five years.

The success of Société des Energies de Côte d’Ivoire’s 275MW Soubré hydro plant has substantially undermined the commercial logic underpinning a proposed 3m t/yr liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Abidjan’s Vridi port. The challenge facing the project’s promoters, which include Total, Shell, Golar LNG, Azerbaijan’s Socar and Endeavor Energy, is not only to justify a gas offtake price higher than the $5.5-6.0/mBtu ceiling set by the government, but also to find a market for the gas at all.

South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Construction submitted the lowest bid for an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the rehabilitation, upgrade and modernisation of the 15m t/yr Skikda refinery.

Total has signed a gas supply agreement and host government agreement with Société Béninoise d’Energie Electrique for a FSRU project in Benin, which will see the French major supply up to 500,000 t/yr of LNG from its portfolio for 15 years from 2021. The gas will be used to supply existing and planned power plants around Maria Gléta.The import volume is particularly small for a FSRU project, which is understood to have given Total an advantage over other bidders as demand in Benin is relatively low.

Sonatrach has shortlisted four companies – Technip, Sinopec, CB&I Lummus and Saipem with Chiyoda Corporation – for the front-end engineering design (FEED) study on its long-awaited Tiaret refinery, now planned to produce 15m t/yr of products. In a 19 October tender opening overseen by Sonatrach director-general Mohammed Meziane, the names of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) bidders to revamp the Algiers refinery were also announced, representing progress in downstream vice president Abdelhafid Feghouli’s long-awaited plans to raise domestic refining capacity.

South Sudan plans to raise production to 290,000 b/d in the 2017-18 fiscal year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June, finance minister and former oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau said on 27 January. This is substantially higher than the 220,000 b/d the country was producing before the outbreak of fighting in December 2013, and almost three times the current volume being marketed by the government and its joint venture partners.According to trading data seen by African Energy, a total of 3.3m bbls of crude were due for lifting in February, equivalent to 118,000 b/d.

ALGERIA: Pipeline crack forces force majeure on LNG; CHAD: Refinery ceremony; MOROCCO: Samir upgrade on schedule; MOZAMBIQUE: Shell to provide refinery study; NIGERIA: Bonny LNG terminal attacked; NIGERIA: Trafigura retains Indian crude swap contract

Victoria Oil & Gas (VOG) plans exploration drilling next year to supply a planned expansion of its Logbaba gas processing plant in Douala. The company appointed a new management team in 2013 after significant cost overruns and has been focusing on transforming itself from an exploration and production company to an integrated utility company. A key milestone was a take-or-pay contract signed with power utility Eneo in December 2014 to supply the 20MW Bassa and 30MW Logbaba power stations.

The board of PetroSA has approved the next stage of development of the Coega refinery project, despite suggestions from BP that it might turn out to be an expensive white elephant.