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After buying out most of BP’s downstream sub-Saharan African assets in 2010 and entering into a lucrative partnership with DT Group to market Angolan oil into China, Trafigura and its partners seem set to become the biggest suppliers of fuel and logistics in Angola and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as major buyers of their minerals.Trafigura describes DT Group as a joint venture between its Singapore subsidiary Trafigura Pte Ltd and Cochan Ltd. The group’s interests span trading, shipping infrastructure, asset management, logistics and mining, as well as crude oil and products trading, mainly from and into Angola.

China National Petroleum Corporation has signed three new agreements with the government: a memorandum of understanding on the Khartoum refinery’s second-phase expansion, advance payment for crude trading and an agreement to swap equity between CNPC’s Block 6 and Petronas’s Block 5A (see Upstream industry pointers).

The internationally recognised government’s insistence that crude oil purchases negotiated with the traditional headquarters of National Oil Corporation (NOC) in Tripoli are illegal, and its attempts to establish its own credible Cyrenaica-based NOC management have so far fallen on deaf ears. The engineers responsible for day-to-day production are unwilling to transfer their allegiance from the corporation’s previous chairman Mustafa Sanalla despite his supposed dismissal last November. Established international buyers of Libyan crude also see no reason to switch. Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni’s amplified rhetoric is regarded as a symptom of his administration’s growing desperation for the cash that it needs, not only for running expenses but also to purchase the weapons with which it hopes to settle the civil war.

President Alassane Ouattara inaugurated the Abidjan-Yamoussoukro products pipeline on 29 July. Work on the 258km pipeline started in 2007 and the project has cost CFAF140bn ($283m). Speaking at the ceremony, oil and energy minister Adama Toungara said the pipeline had a transport capacity of 4m litres, the equivalent of 130 tanker trucks. Describing it as “a tool for regional integration”, he said the pipeline would improve security of supply for markets in the interior of the country, and neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso.

Total, South Africa’s Gigajoule Group and Matola Gas Company (MGC) signed a joint development agreement (JDA) on 27 November for a project to import LNG to Matola port to supply local and regional markets.The project involves a permanently moored floating storage and regasification unit in Matola harbour connected to a gas-fired power plant in the Beluluane Industrial Park, MGC’s gas pipeline infrastructure in Maputo province, and the South African gas network.

Undaunted by disappointments in its offshore – where the once much-hyped Chinguetti oil field is now producing only around 9,000 b/d – Mauritania has high hopes for onshore exploration and gas development. France’s Total, which is leading a pack of exploration companies with large licences in the unexplored Taoudeni Basin, is drilling its first well at Block Ta8, where it is expecting to find oil and gas. The well spudded in October and is expected to take around 100 days to drill. Total says it will drill a second well in 2010.

Uganda and Tanzania are preparing to sign an inter-governmental agreement in December to build a 1,443km crude oil export pipeline from Hoima district in western Uganda through Bukoba in northern Tanzania to Tanga on the Indian Ocean coast. The $3.5bn, 24-inch pipeline is expected to transport 200,000 b/d of crude oil to Tanga.“The signing of the intergovernmental agreement in December will enable the two countries to choose a contractor to carry out a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study of the pipeline,” the East African newspaper quoted Uganda’s acting petroleum director, Robert Kasande, as saying.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to build a refinery to supply oil products to Mauritania, and to neighbouring Mali and Niger.

As well as monetising the gas field offshore Mtwara, the controversial new Mnazi Bay-Dar es Salaam gas pipeline will enable smaller discoveries like Aminex’s Kiliwani North field and Maurel & Prom’s Mkuranga field to be brought on stream and used for domestic power generation, replacing costly imported fuel.

Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons plans to announce the appointment of a strategic partner for its Gas Megahub project by October. Mines and hydrocarbons minister Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima told African Energy that the strategic partner would start work on the project by year-end or early in 2019. He said the ministry had been working with Marathon Oil Corporation and Noble Energy on arrangements to backfill gas for the EGLNG liquefied natural gas plant as the first phase of the project to replace declining production from the Alba field.

After failing to agree terms with the two leading bidders for its flagship refinery scheme, the government is restructuring the 60,000 b/d project and seeking a new investor. Ugandan officials spent more than three years negotiating with a Russian consortium led by RT Global Resources before talks collapsed in June and reserve bidder SK Engineering & Construction indicated that it was no longer interested in the project. Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development assistant commissioner Dozith Abeinomugisha told the Uganda Chamber of Mines and Petroleum annual general meeting in Kampala that the government was looking for a new investor to take a smaller share.

Chinese data for its crude oil imports in January show the increasing importance of trade with African producers - with Angola again Beijing's single biggest supplier after overtaking Saudi Arabia. Data produced by the General Administration for Customs in Beijing show China's crude imports

BG and Petrobras LNG deals; Sonatrach has signed an agreement to develop an ammonia plant with Spain’s Fertiberia

AfDB loan for refiner, Sasol contract for Foster Wheeler

Algeria has started selling liquefied natural gas directly in Spain, bypassing local distributors and using its own subsidiary.