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Dangote Fertilizer Limited has entered into a long-term agreement with Chevron Nigeria Limited for the delivery of natural gas from Chevron’s supply portfolio. The contract, announced on 14 March, is part of international oil companies’ gas obligation to the domestic market through the Gas Aggregation Company Nigeria Limited (GACN).

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is providing a $50m loan to Cheiron Finance Limited, a subsidiary of Egypt’s Pico International Petroleum, in an effort to bolster domestic energy supplies. The loan is part of a $200m financing package arranged by IFC, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and HSBC. It will help Pico, one of Egypt’s leading independent producers, expand operations and optimise production at its oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Suez. Those fields help supply Egypt’s oil and natural gas-fired power plants, which provide the vast majority of the country’s electricity.

The Central Térmica de Ressano Garcia (CTRG) joint venture between Electridade de Mozambique (EDM) and South Africa’s Sasol was inaugurated in a ceremony on 28 August. The 175MW power plant will run on gas from Sasol’s central processing facility at Temane, in Inhambane Province. The plant, which will reach full operation in October, is owned 51% by EDM and 49% by Sasol. It is equipped with 18 Wärtsilä engines of 9.8 MW each – 16 for basic power generation duty, plus two for maintenance/standby and to increase the availability of the basic plant.

The government has made a $350m payment to BG Group, reducing its outstanding debt to around $1.2bn. Egypt’s total arrears to foreign companies reached some $6.3bn in 2013, and the government has started paying off part of its debt to encourage companies to stay and continue investing in the upstream exploration and production sector. BG was obliged to declare force majeure on its liquefied natural gas agreements in January because of the quantity of gas diverted to the domestic market.

Mauritania and Senegal signed an intergovernmental agreement in Nouakchott on 10 February, paving the way for development of the 15tcf Tortue gas discovery, that straddles their maritime border. “The two presidents, convinced of the importance of the role of energy in sustainable economic development, expressed their common desire to intensify cooperation in this sector.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) announced on 10 August that it has awarded a $880,865 grant to Kuikila Investments for a feasibility study for a 78MW mobile gas power plant in Chokwé district in Gaza province. Kuikila will cover the remainder of the $1.26m cost. The study will be carried out by Delphos International over a period of around 12 months, the USTDA told African Energy, with financial close possible six months after the study is completed.

Aminex has agreed to sell up to a 13% interest in the Kiliwani North development licence to its Ruvuma partner Solo Oil for $7m. Solo will initially acquire a 6.5% interest from Aminex subsidiary Ndovu Resources for $3.5m, and will have a 45-day option to purchase an additional 6.5% for $3.5m. Aminex, which is waiting on the start of gas production to provide it with cash flow, will use the proceeds to reduce debt and strengthen its balance sheet. Aminex and Solo are partners in the Ruvuma production-sharing contract, where gas was discovered in 2012 at Ntorya-1.

Teodorin Nguema Obiang, son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has been put under formal investigation in France for money laundering. French police have been investigating allegations that Teodorin, whose official titles are agriculture minister and second vice-president, embezzled public funds to buy real estate and other assets in France. He has denied this, saying his wealth came legitimately through successful business dealings. In June 2013, a French court rejected a bid by Equatorial Guinea to get the preliminary probe annulled; a few months earlier, another court ruled that the Catholic Committee Against Hunger and for Development NGO did not libel President Obiang in a 2009 report.

BP and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company joint venture Pharaonic Petroleum has given Subsea 7 a contract for the development of the East Nile Delta Phase 3 project, involving the Taurt and Hapy field developments. The project scope includes installation engineering, procurement and fabrication of rigid spools, and installation of pipeline, umbilical and subsea structures to develop the resources from two wells, including 8km of umbilicals and pipeline. The field development will be at depths of 80 to 90 metres. Fabrication of spools will be carried out at Petrojet’s yard in Egypt. Offshore installation is scheduled to start in Q4 2015 using the Subsea 7 vessels Rockwater 2 and Seven Borealis.

Angola has announced details of a forthcoming licensing round offering blocks in the Namibe and Benguela basins. The round is the first outing for the new Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás e Biocombustíveis (ANPG), created from splitting Sonangol’s roles as concessionaire and equity holder, and a first test for whether last year’s reforms to the country’s oil and gas laws can attract new licensing interest. The blocks on offer are Block 10 in the southern Benguela Basin and blocks 11, 12, 13, 27, 28, 29, 41, 42 and 43 further south in the Namibe Basin.

The pace of exploration in the Moroccan offshore has speeded up considerably, with geologists hoping for parallels with Nova Scotia, Brazil’s Santos Basin and offshore Angola. Its advocates argue that Morocco is underexplored – with a drilling density of only 0.04 wells/100km2 – and offers a range of oil and gas, conventional and non-conventional prospects. But after a string of widely anticipated wells have come up dry, state oil and mineral resources company Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (Onhym), its international oil company (IOC) partners – some 34 are now in the kingdom

Energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson has set out a timetable for the gas independent power producer (IPP) procurement programme as well as plans for legislative changes to bring gas midstream fully under the purview of the Department of Energy (DoE). The programme has generated considerable interest from upstream, midstream and IPP developers but the details remain to be ironed out. Speaking at the Oil and Gas Council conference in Cape Town on 17 May, Joemat-Pettersson said a preliminary information memorandum would be released in Q3 2016.

The US Trade and Development Agency has agreed a grant for West Africa LNG Group Guinea SA to fund a feasibility study for an LNG import terminal and distribution network near Kamsar port in the Boké region. The study will be conducted by the United States’ Plum Energy LLC and will assess the economic, financial and technical viability of the project. The aim is to supply LNG or natural gas initially to bauxite producers and an industrial park to serve the industrial, mining and agro-processing sectors.

South Sudan is exporting 170,000 b/d of crude via it pipeline to Republic of the Sudan and petroleum minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth expects to increase output from Block 5A from 5,000 b/d to 17,000-20,000 b/d by May 2020, working in co-operation with Khartoum-based Sudan National Petroleum Corporation (Sudapet).

The government of Côte d’Ivoire has asked the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos) to order Ghana to suspend operations on the TEN development until a decision can be reached on the two countries’ maritime boundary dispute. A full verdict from the Hamburg-based tribunal is expected towards the end of 2017. TEN operator Tullow Oil said a decision on the Ivorian request should be handed down before the end of April 2015. Ghana took the dispute to the tribunal last year in an effort to resolve the long-running dispute after bilateral negotiations failed to make significant progress.