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AIM-listed Chariot has appointed Société Générale’s London branch as its financial advisor to develop debt funding options for the offshore Anchois gas development in Morocco. 

The agreement for Senegal to become only the second African economy to secure a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) hinges on Dakar being allowed to push ahead with natural gas and other thermal energy projects. This will allow the government to continue with its ambitious gas-to-power (GTP) plans.

London AIM-listed Helium One has said it will spud the Itumbula well in early January 2024, marking the start of a 30-day drilling programme.

Sekaname Proprietary and state utility Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) have signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the development of a pilot Sekaname coal bed methane (CBM) plant. Authorities in Botswana, which has been undertaking CBM prospecting for many years, see the commercial production of gas as a step towards the country transitioning from coal-dependent generation to a new energy mix that include gas, solar and wind.

AIM-listed United Oil & Gas has won BP’s backing for a $16m deal to buy Rockhopper Egypt Pty Ltd, which has a 22% non-operated interest in the Abu Sennan concession in the Western Desert. BP will provide a prepayment financing structure of up to $8m, and United and BP have entered into an offtake agreement for United’s future oil and gas production. The balance of the $16m will be funded via an equity placing, of which up to $5m may be taken up by Rockhopper Exploration in United shares.

A four-day hearing opened in London’s High Court on 21 November to decide whether the English courts can hear two legal claims on behalf of over 40,000 Nigerians against Royal Dutch Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria for environmental damage caused by oil pollution in the Niger Delta.The first claim is being brought on behalf of 2,335 individuals from the Bille Kingdom, mostly fishermen who claim their environment has been devastated by oil spills over the past five years.

France’s Maurel & Prom (M&P) and Canada’s Wentworth Resources have signed a gas sales agreement with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), covering the long-term sale of natural gas from the Mnazi Bay and Msimbati fields. The gas will be supplied via the government-owned and operated Mtwara to Dar es Salaam pipeline and Madimba central processing facility, which are scheduled to commission in Q1 2015. For the first eight months of the agreement, the companies will supply up to 80mcf/d, increasing over time to 130mcf/d for up to 17 years. First delivery is expected between 22 January 2015 and 22 April 2015 at a fixed price of $3/mBtu, equivalent to roughly $3.07/mcf.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and its partners have signed another gas sales agreement as they prepare for a final investment decision on 18 June. Anadarko announced on 13 May that Mozambique LNG1 Company, the Mozambique Area 1 co-venturers’ sales entity, had signed a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Japan’s Jera and Taiwan’s CPC Corporation for delivery of 1.6m t/yr of LNG for 17 years. The latest SPA brings total long-term agreements to 11.1m t/yr, of the development’s total nameplate capacity of 12.88 m t/yr from two initial trains.

Documents disclosed in the ongoing legal battle between Arandis Power and NamPower over the tender award to Xaris Energy have brought to light how the electricity sector has been paralysed by contradictory policy and competing financial agendas. The controversial Xaris scheme, promoted as a fast-track solution for the country’s looming energy problems, was suspended in 2015 amid concerns about the tender process, but the suspension was lifted in December. The 200MW shortage that Namibia Power Corporation (NamPower) said would cause rolling blackouts in the winter of 2016 did not materialise, but this has not stopped the competing political factions from undermining each other at every opportunity.

Key public and private sector parties have signed a cooperation agreement for the construction of an estimated $6bn natural gas pipeline from northern Mozambique to Gauteng, South Africa. The main signatories are Mozambique’s Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), Profin Consulting, SacOil Holdings and pipeline construction company China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPP).SacOil chief executive Dr Thabo Kgogo described the agreement as a key milestone in the development of the pipeline and distribution project.

Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has given Penspen a contract to conduct a front-end engineering design study for further development of the Ghana Natural Gas Interconnected Transmission System. BOST, as holder of Ghana’s natural gas transmission utility licence, has a mandate to operate, maintain and further develop a country-wide gas transmission network as part of Ghana’s national agenda to exploit gas as an efficient and cost-effective means of augmenting power supply. The first phase of this build-out will be the addition of approximately 750km of pipeline from Aboadze to Tema, and from Prestea to Buipe, via Kumasi.

The Egyptian government is considering a number of options for the sale of three gas-fired power plants built by Siemens between 2015 and 2018 which together added 14.4GW to the grid. A sale may be negotiated bilaterally or via a more time-consuming competitive auction; options include the eventual floating of a minority stake on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. The newly formed Tharaa sovereign wealth fund is already playing a decision-making role and is likely to retain the state’s long-term interest in the plants.

BP has announced the signing of amendments for the Temsah, Ras El Barr and Nile Delta Offshore concessions to permit development of the Nooros field, discovered in July 2015. BP said Nooros, in the Nile Delta Offshore concession, this month achieved record production of 700mcf/d and is set to reach 880mcf/d by early 2017. BP will also drill additional wells in the Ras El Barr and Temsah areas that are expected to bring significant gas to the energy-hungry Egyptian domestic market.

An announcement from Eni saying chief executive Claudio Descalzi met Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Félix Tshisekedi on 13 September in Kinshasa gave little away, saying only that they discussed forest conservation initiatives and Descalzi outlined prospects for projects to improve electricity distribution infrastructure.However, sources in Kinshasa told African Energy the talks covered the Inga III development, oil and gas exploration blocks in eastern Congo, and prospects for supplying power to the DRC mining sector from a planned expansion to the Centrale Electrique du Congo (CEC) gas-fired power plant in Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo.

The Algerian authorities have continued to sign new deals in the upstream and downstream sectors while advancing their more controversial agenda of exploiting shale resources despite public opposition. Preparations are building for a policy announcement in December which could open the way to further developments next year. On 7 October, Sonatrach, Total and Repsol completed their agreements to jointly develop the Erg Issouane gas field and market the gas. The field is located on the TFT Sud permit south of the partners’ existing Tin Fouyé Tabenkort (TFT) field.