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The World Bank has announced a record investment of $700m in guarantees for Eni and Vitol’s Sankofa gas project, which it says will help mobilise private investment to address Ghana’s serious energy shortage. The World Bank board on 30 July approved an International Development Association payment guarantee of $500m to support timely payments for gas purchases by Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development enclave loan guarantee of $200m that enables the project to secure financing from its private sponsors.

Orca Exploration Group said on 15 June it was proceeding with the first phase of its planned Songo Songo development programme following World Bank board approval of a $60m investment by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IFC will invest in Orca subsidiary PanAfrican Energy Tanzania in the form of a subordinated income participating loan. Orca has signed a drilling contract with Paragon Offshore for its M826 mobile drilling workover rig, to start in August or September. Operations will include workovers on three existing wells and drilling of a new well. Orca has the option to drill a further two wells, depending on the success of the workovers.

Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and IHI Corporation on 17 February signed a turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with Electricidade de Mozambique (EDM) for a 110MW gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Maputo. Sumitomo said this would be the country’s first gas-fired combined-cycle power plant and, when completed, would meet about 20% of domestic power demand. The plant aims to stabilise power supply to Maputo and the south, which is not connected to the main transmission infrastructure running from Cahora Bassa.

The Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons announced on 4 December that ExxonMobil has submitted a Notice of Discovery for the Avestruz-1 (Ostrich) well on Block EG-06 and is evaluating its commercial potential and possible development options. ExxonMobil signed a contract in 2015 for the block, which lies southwest of Block B, which contains the Zafiro field, and north of Ophir Energy’s Block R, where the Fortuna gas field is under development.

Angola LNG and EDF Trading have announced a flexible sales arrangement for the delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes on an ex-ship basis from the ALNG plant in Soyo. The sales arrangement covers the delivery of multiple cargoes from 2016 to 2018 for supply into the European wholesale market.“This marks an important milestone for Angola LNG as it re-enters the market,” said Angola LNG Marketing chief executive Artur Pereira.

Canada’s Sea Dragon Energy has farmed down a 45% stake in the gas-prospective South Disouq concession in the Nile Delta to US privately owned explorer IPR Energy Resources. Sea Dragon said that Dallas-based IPR had agreed to carry the cost of the first-phase commitment well subject to a cap as well as fund a share of the remaining work programme and pay $1.9m of signature bonus. In return, IPR will gain a 45% non-operatorship interest in the 1,275km2 permit, awarded to Sea Dragon Energy in April 2013 following a bid round organised by Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company.

Despite his incapacities, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, with his Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, has spent recent weeks giving the impression of action at the top. New senior management is bedding in at national oil company Sonatrach, and military promotions on independence day, 5 July, signalled business as usual, even if there is still no movement on the retirement of key players such as military intelligence chief General Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Mediene and chief of staff and deputy defence minister Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaïd Salah.

The Ghana 1000 gas-to-power project partners have signed an agreement with floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) provider Excelerate Energy for an FSRU to supply the project planned for Aboadze. According to a joint statement from the project partners, the first phase of the Ghana 1000 project is expected to be completed in late 2016 and will add 125MW to the grid. This will increase to 750MW by 2018 and 1,300MW within five years. The project is led by General Electric and Endeavor Energy, with consortium partners Eranove and Ghanaian oil trader Sage Petroleum.

InfraCo Africa has issued a request for prequalification seeking expressions of interest from consortia of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for the detailed design, engineering, procurement and construction of a power plant at Lake Albert. The project involves the development, finance, construction and operation of a dual-fuel power plant to run on associated gas and heavy fuel oil produced by the Uganda oil industry. Lake Albert Infrastructure Services Limited (LAIS), a Ugandan company established and owned by InfraCo.

A cabinet meeting in Kinshasa has agreed to open up parts of the Virunga and Salonga national parks to oil and gas exploration. The decision was made on 8 June, but not made public until three weeks later. According to an official communiqué, the Council of Ministers authorised hydrocarbons minister Aimé Ngoy Mukena and his environment and sustainable development counterpart Amy Ambatobe to establish an interministerial committee to prepare the declassification of areas of the Salonga National Park covered by Block 2 of the Cuvette Centrale Basin.

Nigeria’s Oando plc has won shareholder approval to sell its gas and power, downstream, and energy services businesses. A shareholders meeting on 7 December approved plans for a rights issue to raise up to N80bn ($402m). Oando paid $1.5bn to acquire ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian operations in July 2014 in a bid to expand its upstream operations, but its cashflow has been hard hit by the lower oil price. The company, which is listed in Johannesburg and Lagos, while its upstream arm Oando Energy Resources is listed in Toronto, also won approval to issue N40bn of shares from its unissued share capital to swap debt for equity under agreements with two shareholders, Ocean and Oil Development Partners and QPR Limited.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has emerged as lead financer of the 1,800MW Damanhour combined-cycle gas turbine power plant in the Nile Delta. A €548m ($620m) loan for the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) is under appraisal, representing about 44.5% of the estimated $1.34bn total cost of the project, located on the El-Mahmoudia canal in El-Beheira governorate, 150km north-west of Cairo.The project consists of two 900MW combined-cycle modules, each with two 300MW high-efficiency gas turbines, two multi-pressure heat-recovery steam generators without supplementary firing, and a 300MW reheat steam turbine generator.

The Malabo government announced on 5 August that it had signed a joint financing agreement with BG Group and state gas company Sonagas for two projects using natural gas in the local economy. One project will convert a 24MW power plant in Bata, on the mainland, to run on gas. The other is “developing a fleet of 20 natural-gas powered buses and fuelling stations to operate between Equatorial Guinea’s two largest cities”, BG Group external communications manager Kim Blomley told African Energy. Other than saying “we have committed to jointly fund the construction”, Blomley gave no more details about the projects and their timelines.

Eni started gas production from the Sankofa field in the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) integrated oil and gas project at the beginning of July. The field will provide 180mcf/d for at least 15 years, which Eni said was enough to convert half of Ghana’s power generation capacity to gas.Production started from two of the four deep-water subsea wells connected to the John Agyekum Kufuor floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

Nigeria LNG signed a letter of intent on 11 September with the SCD consortium of Saipem, Chiyoda and Daewoo Engineering & Construction for an engineering, procurement and construction contract to develop its long-awaited Train 7 project. A final investment decision (FID) is planned by the end of October for the project, which will increase production by 35%. “NLNG FID date of 31 October 2019 is sacrosanct.