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The connection between the Jubilee floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel and the Atuabo gas plant was completed on 7 November, allowing gas to be exported to the plant and commissioning to start. Upstream operator Tullow Oil said the plant was expected to become fully operational towards year-end, which would allow gas to be evacuated from the FPSO and significantly reduce the need for re-injection. “However, due to the substantial quantity of gas injected into the reservoir since first oil in 2010, it is anticipated that the increase of Jubilee oil production will be gradual and is expected to take until Q4 2015 to reach the facility capacity of 120,000 b/d,” Tullow said in an interim management statement (IMS) on 12 November.

The 8.8MW Mainland independent power project was commissioned on 30 October by Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola. Developed through a public/private partnership between the state government and a consortium of Mainland Power, CET Power and Solad Electric, the plant operates using 5.8MW powered by natural gas and 3MW standby using diesel. It will supply a number of institutional buildings including Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and Area F Police Command, as well as 20km of street lighting. There will be the possibility of transferring ownership to the state government after ten years of operation; there is also an option to expand generation to 25MW.

Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) has asked the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority for a tariff of $4.178/mBtu for gas from the Songo Songo field. TPDC is in the final stages of building a pipeline to transport gas from Mtwara and Songo Songo to two processing plants in Madimba, Mtwara, and Songo Songo Island. A new Chinese-funded pipeline has been built to supplement the old 12-inch pipeline between Songo Songo and Dar es Salaam, which reached its capacity of 140mcf/day around 2007-08.

Seplat has abandoned plans to make a bid for Afren after the beleaguered company turned down its request for a further extension to the deadline to make a formal offer. “The board has not received any proposal from Seplat that it believes is capable of being implemented on terms satisfactory to all relevant stakeholders in the company, including the indicated value being significantly below the aggregate value of the debt of the company,” Afren said in a 13 February statement.

Cenpower Generation Company Limited has announced the financial close of $900m of project finance for the Kpone independent power plant (IPP) at Tema. The 340MW combined cycle gas turbine plant is due on stream in 2017 and will be Ghana’s largest IPP, accounting for some 10% of total installed capacity and 20% of available thermal generation capacity. The project finance comprises two components: a $650m debt tranche and a $250m equity tranche. The debt is being funded under export credit cover by a consortium of South African commercial banks and international development finance institutions (DFIs).

ContourGlobal has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Senelec for a new plant at the Cap des Biches site in Dakar. The agreement was signed at the Senegalese embassy in Washington on the eve of the US-Africa summit. ContourGlobal will invest €85m ($113m) to rehabilitate the site and build, own and operate a 53MW thermal plant running on heavy fuel oil and natural gas. According to the company, when completed in 2015, it will be the lowest cost liquid fuel and natural gas-fired power plant in Senegal.

London-listed Afren on 30 July announced the suspension of chief executive Osman Shahenshah and chief operating officer Shahid Ullah, pending an investigation of unauthorised payments received by them. Afren said in a statement the payments were uncovered by an independent review carried out on the board’s behalf by law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher “of the potential need for disclosure of certain previous transactions to the market”. The statement added: “These payments were not made by the company. The investigation has not found any evidence that any other board members were involved.”

Ophir Energy has announced a gas discovery with the Silenus East-1 well in Block R and has expanded the size of its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) project to 3m t/yr from 2.5m t/yr. The Silenus East-1 well was drilled by the Vantage Titanium Explorer drillship within the thrust belt area of Block R. Ophir is planning to produce gas from the block via a floating LNG (FLNG) scheme. “The Silenus East well result has confirmed sufficient incremental volumes for Ophir to be able to expand the Block R FLNG project from a 2.5m t/yr to a 3.0m t/yr project. This is important in that it provides economies of scale that increase the value of this already economic project,” said chief executive Nick Cooper.

Despite Egypt’s continued political instability, a consortium of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont and the Netherlands’ Archirodon Group has signed a contract worth up to $1.95bn with Carbon Holdings for utilities and offsite facilities as part of the Tahrir petrochemical complex in Ain Sokhna. Carbon Holdings, founded by Basil El-Baz, is a privately owned Egyptian company which develops and operates downstream oil and gas projects. On completion, the Tahrir complex is expected to boost Egypt’s annual exports by more than 25%. The contract is for engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning activities worth between $1.7bn and $1.9bn.

Chevron says the Angola Liquefied Natural Gas (ALNG) plant is running at around 50 percent capacity and has shipped three LNG and two liquefied petroleum gas cargoes so far this year. Chevron said the variable composition of the plant’s associated gas supply had affected its initial performance. The company said in its annual report that it expected the plant to remain at about 50% capacity until permanent modifications could be completed in 2015, allowing ALNG to consistently produce at its full capacity of 180,000 boe/d.

Diversions of gas to the domestic market forced BG Group on 27 January to issue force majeure notices under its liquefied natural gas (LNG) agreements. In a statement ahead of its 2013 Q4 and full-year results on 4 February, BG said the revised pooling arrangements put in place for 2013 had not been honoured and domestic diversions were at around capacity, close to 1bcf/d. “As a result, BG Group has been unable to meet in full its obligations to deliver gas to Egyptian LNG and, given the current levels of domestic diversions and the continued uncertainty around the level of future diversions, BG Group has served force majeure notices under its LNG agreements to buyers and lenders.

Total and Kosmos Energy have both signed a Joint Declaration of Principles with the Moroccan government setting out commitments regarding exploration and any eventual development in the disputed Western Sahara. Kosmos said the declaration signed on 19 December 2013 outlined commitments on exploration activities and the key principles under which development would proceed if commercially viable hydrocarbon deposits were discovered. It stated that any such development would be undertaken in accordance with international standards, including those in the United Nations Charter and in the 2002 UN legal opinion on resource development in the territory.

BG Group has announced an increase in total recoverable resources for the Mzia discovery and across blocks 1, 3 and 4 offshore southern Tanzania, marking the conclusion of a drilling and testing campaign that confirmed the Mzia field as a second giant gas discovery after Jodari, with 4.7tcf of total gross recoverable resources. Total gross recoverable resources across BG’s blocks 1, 3 and 4 are now estimated to be around 15tcf, with further exploration upside, while Statoil estimates 17-20tcf of gas in place in Block 2.

Despite estimated probable reserves of 5tcf domestic natural gas and a strategic location in the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana suffers power shortages that have for decades hampered economic growth. Even when the long-awaited infrastructure is finally completed, offshore gas will only meet a fraction of the country’s power needs, and the government is considering other options, such as importing coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG). “Load shedding in Accra is now approaching 18 hours off/12 hours on,” an Accra-based energy analyst told African Energy. “It’s an economic and political catastrophe – a huge embarrassment to the current administration. That’s why, right now, everything is in play.”

After more than two years of arbitration, the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce has upheld RSM Production Corporation’s claim that it was unjustly divested of its 38% stake in the Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG)-operated Logbaba gas field onshore Cameroon in July 2011 for failure to pay its share of operating costs. However, while affirming RSM’s interest in the concession, the court ordered the company to “promptly” pay its arrears or risk default. In June 2011, London-based VOG said RSM, owned by Denver oilman Jack Grynberg, had failed to comply with a cash call served on 15 June, giving it 15 days to pay the outstanding balance.