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The United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) has lifted sanctions on National Oil Corporation (NOC)’s Benghazi-based subsidiary Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco).

Tanzania’s Fair Competition Commission (FCC) has cleared the acquisition of 50% of BP Tanzania Limited by Trafigura subsidiary Puma Energy (Tanzania) Investments Ltd

Italian gas company Sinergie Italiane has agreed to buy 145,000m3 of liquefied natural gas from BG Group in what will be the first shipment of LNG from Equatorial Guinea to Italy.

As the new regime in Tripoli establishes its authority, Libya urgently needs to restart oil production.  A potentially divisive mix of old and new faces is emerging to take charge of the sector, writes John Hamilton

Sasol, iGas and Compania Mozambicana de Gasoduto are building a gas compression station to facilitate a 20% expansion of natural gas delivery from Mozambique to South Africa by the end of 2009.

The Private Infrastructure Development Group Trust’s Green Africa Power investment facility has received a commitment of NOK300m ($48m) from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, bringing total committed funds to £121m ($204m). GAP is a multi-donor initiative that aims to provide long-term subordinated loans and contingent lines of credit to privately owned renewable power generation projects in Africa alongside commercial lenders and equity investors. GAP expects to start deploying funds to projects in Q1 2015, and work is under way to identify and review potential investments.

The government has announced plans to sell 10% of the shares in the publicly-owned Companhia Moçambicana de Hidrocarbonetos (CMH) to Mozambican individuals and companies.

South Sudan’s crude production in the first half of July was estimated at 160,000-165,000 b/d, according to industry sources. Sources in Juba have confirmed that Chinese oil workers were evacuated in May from key oilfields in South Sudan’s only producing state, Upper Nile, but any downturn in oil production was shortlived. Current output is slightly higher than the H1 average.On 8 July, Sinopec subsidiary China International United Petroleum & Chemicals (Unipec) won the contract for a cargo of 1m barrels of Dar Blend crude for loading at Port Sudan between 15 and 17 August.

Sasol and the Indonesian government signed a memorandum of understanding on 3 December for a screening study on the viability of an integrated coal-to-liquids (CTL) project using Sasol’s proprietary technology.

The much-anticipated national LNG development plan is going ahead with a strengthened advisory team and revised targets, working to new bid deadlines, which take account of the ambitious integrated project’s scale and follow officials’ analysis of input from potential investors. Some of the heads of state who have lobbied King Mohammed VI, and among the 100-plus potential liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers who have lined up to see Ministry of Energy, Mining, Water and Environment senior adviser Abdellaziz El Gamah, may find it worth the wait: the long-term quantity of gas required at the new Jorf Lasfar terminal is now expected to be 10bcm/yr, double the original forecast.

Over the past several years, power cuts have become a standard feature of Egyptian summers. This year, nation-wide blackouts started in mid-March, indicating the country may be heading towards one of the most difficult peak demand seasons ever. Interim prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab has demanded that Egyptian Electricity Holding Company accelerate the completion of an additional 2,400MW of generation capacity, to bring it on stream by June instead of August. The government has also returned to plans that it rejected last year to commission a temporary floating regasification unit to allow it to import liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Kenya’s Mombasa refinery has secured its short-term future with a $250m working capital loan to support its transformation from a tolling refinery to a merchant one, writes Kimemia Mugo in Nairobi

IOCs are keen to book reserves so more export LNG capacity can be built, but Egypt and other governments are increasingly concerned to add value by using gas at home.

The Tanzanian government has unveiled a new gas policy focused on prioritising the domestic market rather than the large-scale exports favoured by IOCs, writes Hugh Boylan.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has invited expressions of interest from consultants for a feasibility study for the expansion of the West African Gas Pipeline. An extension to Côte d’Ivoire had been mooted before the country’s civil conflict, and prime minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said on 29 July that a pipeline running between Lagos and Abidjan would enable more private power producers to improve energy supply in neighbouring countries. Côte d’Ivoire is already supplying power to Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana Benin and Togo via the West African Power Pool, and will also supply Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea once interconnection infrastructure is completed.