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HSBC and Standard Chartered have issued a $500m letter of credit for Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). The banks said the facility would guarantee GNPC’s payment obligations to Vitol and Eni for the sale of gas from the Sankofa field. GNPC will have a 20% stake in the project. “The Sankofa integrated oil and gas project will be Ghana’s third operating field in quick succession. Gas from the field will provide baseload fuel to generate about 1,100MW of electricity in Ghana for 15 years,” said GNPC acting chief executive Alexander Mould. HSBC France is acting as agent on the stand-by credit facility, and co-issued $250m alongside Standard Chartered.

Neptune Energy and Sonatrach on 7 September announced the start of exports from the 450mcf/d (75,000 boe/d) Touat gas development. Located around 1,400km south-west of Algiers and close to Adrar, the development comprises 19 wells and a gas treatment plant for gas and stabilised condensate, with a gathering network and export pipelines.Production started in February as part of the commissioning process.

Local content provision has long been a hot topic in the oil and gas industry, but many delegates at the 3-4 October Africa Investment Exchange: Nairobi event were surprised at how far the issue could generate controversy and block support for electricity projects. Several African delegates spoke of building local content into projects to drive industrialisation that, in turn, will improve living standards and stimulate demand for power. But one major funder insisted their institution could not support projects that created “market distortions” contravening the European Union’s standard procurement procedures.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in January announced it had joined HSBC Bank Egypt in a total $100m commitment to support independent exploration and development company Improved Petroleum Recovery (IPR). The EBRD said the facility was “intended to facilitate IPR’s near-term growth strategy”, and had been “structured with an accordion feature to allow additional commitments”. It expected IPR to invest in enhanced oil recovery and other technologies, and to participate in growth opportunities including upcoming bid rounds.

Africa Oil Corporation (AOC) is optimistic about prospects for gas from Kenya’s Anza Basin following the Sala-1 gas discovery. AOC plans appraisal drilling at Sala and the Bogal structure, where former operator CNOOC drilled a well in 2010, and is talking of potential reserves of 1-3tcf, with significant potential for the domestic power market. The Bogal-1 well found non-commercial gas at 5,085 metres in the Lower Cretaceous and CNOOC pulled out of the block in 2011. AOC now puts Bogal’s prospective reserves at 1.8tcf.

Tullow Oil and its partner Itochu Corporation are pulling out of the Kudu gas field development, transferring their stake back to the government, which looks set to bring in Chinese partners in their place. Industry sources said Tullow had lost patience with the slow progress on the project, where the government had been supposed to find a new upstream partner to take a portion of the 54% stake held by National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor), and to provide guarantees to underwrite the project.

Operator New Age African Global Energy has failed to find additional gas with the IM-6 appraisal well on the Etinde Block. Partner Bowleven said the well achieved its main objective of delineating the wet gas/water contact location within the intra-Isongo 410 sand reservoir. It was also targeting an incremental 0.7tcf of wet gas in place from the 410 horizon but found that target and the two secondary targets were water bearing.

Brazil’s Petrobras and France’s Total on 24 October signed a memorandum of understanding in Rio de Janeiro, setting out the general framework for a strategic alliance covering upstream and downstream activities in Brazil and internationally. In the first phase, the companies intend to focus on upstream and gas to power. Petrobras will offer opportunities to Total to partner in projects in Brazil, while Total will offer Petrobras opportunities outside Brazil, enabling the companies to combine their expertise in deep-water development.

The World Bank Group signed agreements on 6 August for the 96MW Tobene independent power project in Taiba Ndiaye, 90km north-east of Dakar. These included a E93.4m ($124.5m) financing agreement arranged by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and a $40m equivalent partial risk guarantee from the International Development Association. The project will be developed on a build, own and operate basis by Melec PowerGen, an affiliate of Lebanon’s Matelec Group, which will own at least 90% of the plant. The early stage development of the E123m plant was led by IFC InfraVentures, IFC’s infrastructure project development fund, and IFC will retain a 10% stake on completion of a proposed equity investment.

Wentworth Resources has said that the Mnazi Bay joint venture partners have received a landmark first payment of $3.8m from Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation for gas deliveries to the new pipeline in October. The Oslo and AIM-listed company said gas was being supplied to the existing Ubungo-II and Symbion power plants in Dar es Salaam as well as to the new Kinyerezi-I power plant.

Tanzania has seen a new development impetus since John Pombe Magufuli took over as president on 5 November following October’s elections. His government is in talks with Uganda and Total to route a planned oil export pipeline from Lake Albert to Tanga port, instead of the route to the Kenyan coast favoured by Nairobi and Tullow Oil, and in January, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) finalised the purchase of 2m hectares of land at Mchinga Bay, north of Lindi, for a planned two-train liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, enabling work to go ahead on developing the project.

President Macky Sall on 14 March formally inaugurated the 70MW Tobene independent power project (IPP), developed by Melec PowerGen with funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The plant, developed on a build-own-operate basis, will run initially on heavy fuel oil (HFO) but is designed for easy conversion to gas. IFC spokeswoman Zibu Sibanda told African Energy that gas supply could eventually come from recent discoveries offshore Mauritania and Senegal and, in the meantime, the country was considering importing LNG to a floating regasification unit.

African infrastructure development firm Black Rhino is partnering Dangote Industries to invest up to $5bn in energy infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years. New York Stock Exchange-listed asset management company Blackstone had earlier announced that it was backing Black Rhino with the aim of identifying, developing, financing, constructing and operating large-scale infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa. The deal will see Blackstone fund Black Rhino’s operations and invest in its projects on a deal-by-deal basis. The focus will be on power generation, transmission, fuel storage and pipelines.

APR Energy has supplied and installed two 20MW TM2500 turbines to add to capacity at the 154MW Malabo Turbo Gas plant on Bioko Island. The new turbines arrived in Equatorial Guinea in early August and are expected to commission by the end of September.

Sasol said on 1 February it had obtained approval from Mozambique’s council of ministers for a new field development plan for an area next to its producing Pande and Temane fields. The first phase of the production-sharing agreement licence area development proposes an integrated oil, liquefied petroleum gas and gas project adjacent to Sasol’s existing petroleum production agreement (PPA) area. Sasol declared commerciality on the Inhassoro G6 and G10 oil, and Temane G8 and Temane East gas reservoirs in 2013.