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Veteran Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) leader Afonso Dhlakama’s surprise return to the bush in October 2012 was an unsettling reminder of the fragility of post-conflict Mozambique, as guerrilla roadblocks returned and coal exports were halted in the central region. Renamo’s rebellion was triggered by demands for a greater share of state jobs and resources. A peace agreement signed on 24 August 2014 promised jobs, above all in the army and police, and set a platform for campaigning to start for general elections on 15 October.

Total and its partners are gearing up to drill the Venus-1 well on Block 2912 in late 2019 or early 2020, hoping for a second discovery to follow the Brulpadda gas condensate find drilled offshore South Africa early this year.“This is a massive submarine fan, it’s the biggest one any of us have ever seen. It’s about 600km2,” Africa Oil Corporation president and chief executive Keith Hill told the Africa E&P conference in London on 22 May.

Key upstream partners are making bullish noises about their Algerian operations, but a call by judicial authorities to reopen investigations into historic accusations of malfeasance at state energy giant Sonatrach threatens to undermine confidence (see View). Italian major Eni has been anxious to secure long-term contracts and reiterate its commitment to Algerian business after ex-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika left office. Gas supply deals were signed in June with Portuguese buyer Galp and Sonatrach’s largest Italian client, Enel.

The African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (Appo) is seeking a leadership role as the continent’s oil and gas industry starts to mature. At the heart of its ambitions lies its members’ common aim to unshackle themselves from dependence on international oil companies (IOCs). Much as the technical and financial contribution of IOCs is understood and desired, at another level it is also resented. Appo’s aim is to create a new Africa-wide solidarity that would enable its members to deal with the global industry on a more equal basis.

Paris-based private equity investor Eranove Group has moved quickly to issue a call for expressions of interest from engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) specialists to develop a new 350MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant. Eranove’s project fits with government plans to double national generation capacity to 4GW by 2020. The Council of Ministers on 31 August approved a plan for Abidjan’s two established independent power producers, Eranove’s local generation subsidiary Compagnie Ivoirienne de Production d’Electricité (Ciprel) and Globeleq’s Azito Energie, to further expand in the next three years.

Sonatrach has given Amec Foster Wheeler a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for three new refineries located in Biskra, Tiaret and Hassi Messaoud. The three refineries will each have a capacity of 5m t/yr of Algerian crude oil and contain facilities for atmospheric distillation, liquefied petroleum gas separation, hydrocrackers, desulphurisation, bitumen production, utilities, blending, effluents treatment, control room and laboratories. The Biskra site will include lubrication oil facilities.

The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) has approved up to $50m in direct financing to support the 459MW Azura-Edo power project near Benin City, in Edo State. Key contracts and debt financing agreements were completed early in May, allowing construction to start on the open-cycle gas turbine plant. The project is 97.5% owned by Azura Edo Ltd, whose equity holders are Azura Power Holdings Ltd (50%), which is majority owned by Mauritius-based Amaya Capital and US investment fund American Capital Energy & Infrastructure (ACEI), Macquarie Group and Old Mutual’s African Infrastructure Investment Fund 2 (30%), the UK’s Aldwych International (9.2%), Nigerian asset manager Asset and Resource Management Ltd (6%) and the Netherlands’ FMO (4.8%).

Seplat Petroleum Development Company has acquired stakes in two Niger Delta licences sold by Chevron Nigeria. The company, which raised $500m with a share listing in London and Lagos last year and is also considering a bid for Afren (AE 292/19), has completed the acquisition of a 40% stake in OML 53, as well as indirectly buying 22.5% in OML 55. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has 60% in both blocks. Seplat will acquire the OML 55 stake by buying 56.25% of Belemaoil Producing Limited, a special purpose vehicle that has completed the acquisition of 40% in the licence from Chevron.

Nigeria LNG (NLNG) Limited has awarded contracts to two consortia for front-end engineering design (FEED) work for its long-awaited Train 7 expansion project. A signing ceremony took place in London on 11 July for the project, which aims to increase liquefied natural gas output to 30m t/yr from 22m t/yr now. A completed FEED process will pave the way for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) pricing and bidding processes, which are required before a final investment decision (FID).

East Africa could benefit from the results of a European Commission-funded study coordinated by Spain’s Enagás aimed at developing a safe and efficient, integrated logistics and supply chain for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the transport industry, particularly for maritime transport in the Iberian peninsula. The study is scheduled to be completed by end-2020 at a total cost of €33m, of which half comes from the European Commission. The study will make recommendations for the Spanish and Portuguese national policy frameworks for alternative fuel supply infrastructure, and will prepare plans for future commercial deployment along the Mediterranean and Atlantic corridors in the Iberian peninsula.

Nigerian joint venture West African Gas Ltd has given Golar LNG Ltd a firm contract for a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) for an LNG import scheme at Tema port. WAGL is jointly owned by subsidiaries of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation with 60% and Sahara Group subsidiary Sahara Energy Resource Ltd with 40%. Golar said the FSRU would be moored inside the port at a new jetty being built by WAGL. Start-up is planned for Q2 2016, and the contract will be for an initial period of five years, with the option for WAGL to extend for a further five years.

Rosneft has followed Gazprom by signing a large liquefied natural gas (LNG) import deal with Egypt outside the competitive tender process. Starting in Q4 2015, it will deliver 24 cargoes over two years. Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) has already contracted to purchase 35 cargoes from Gazprom over the next five years. The first LNG supply tender issued by Egas in January was for 70 cargoes for delivery to the Höegh floating terminal at Ain Sokhna. Trafigura committed to deliver 33, Vitol nine, and Noble Group seven. BP’s initial commitment of 21 cargoes was reduced to 16.

With a plummeting oil price making life difficult for Africa’s explorers, SacOil Holdings is looking at developing a pipeline to import Mozambican gas into South Africa as a strategy to diversify its portfolio. On 3 December it signed a joint development agreement (JDA) with South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, which has a significant shareholding in the company, and Instituto de Gestão das Participações do Estado (Igepe), the investment arm of the Mozambican government, with the aim of evaluating the technical and commercial feasibility of the project.

The Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy has invited expressions of interest from consultants to supply transaction advisory services to help it establish a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. The project is being financed from the World Bank’s Mining and Gas Technical Assistance Project. The consulting services include advice and guidance regarding the contractual and commercial aspects of the LNG value chain; developing an economic/financial model of the LNG value chain; modelling the impact of the technical, commercial and contractual negotiation variables during the negotiation; advice and guidance to the government’s LNG negotiating team on economic and financial modelling during the negotiations.

Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has surprised many investors by declining to sign into law the embattled Petroleum Industry Governance Bill. Claiming the bill would divert scarce financial resources from state coffers, Buhari in late August struck a potentially lethal blow to petroleum reform. He may also have brought an anticlimactic end to almost two decades of tortuous legislative to and fro over petroleum reform, marked by extensive lobbying and concern from Shell, Eni, ExxonMobil, Total and other international partners.