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Fitch Ratings on 7 September downgraded oil and gas infrastructure company Seven Energy International’s issuer default rating to CC from B-, and cut the secured rating of Seven Energy Finance’s 10.25% $300m secured notes due 2021 to C from CCC. Fitch said the downgrade reflected “a re-assessment of the significant ongoing liquidity, security and execution risks that Seven Energy continues to face. While the company is making progress in its negotiations with lenders to defer repayments under the $377m Accugas IV facility, which if and when completed should improve its short-term liquidity, liquidity over the medium-term is likely to remain very tight and will remain largely determined by external developments.”

Tanzania’s plans for competitive procurement are moving ahead, with Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) expected to issue a request for qualification imminently for the 250MW Somanga Fungu gas-to-power project, transaction adviser K&M Advisors president Alfonso Guzman told African Energy. “The form of development is still under discussion and will be finalised before the request for proposals is issued to prequalified bidders,” Guzman said. Tanesco has struggled to keep up with payments to independent power producers (IPPs) in the country. A more active role in Somanga Fungu for the utility might help alleviate fears about receiving payments, although questions remain about its reliability as a partner.

Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH) and Perenco have announced a final investment decision for an eight-year floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) project to sell gas to Russia’s Gazprom. On 27 November, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore, Perenco Cameroon, Golar Hilli and Golar Cameroon signed agreements for the project, based on the allocation of 500bcf of natural gas reserves to be supplied by SNH and Perenco from the Sanaga Sud and Ebome fields. Golar will own and operate the Hilli vessel which is under conversion at the Keppel shipyard in Singapore. First LNG deliveries from the terminal are expected to start in H2 2017.

Ministers from Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea and Ghana signed a protocol of agreement on 16 May creating a framework under which all three countries will work together to explore the possibility of establishing a jointly owned regional gas company. ‘All three countries are cognisant of the benefits that would be derived from the regional gas company, including new revenue streams from the sale of hitherto unexploited natural gas, creation of new jobs, and facilitating access to gas by power plants, industries and homes that need them as a source of energy or feedstock,” Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy said in a statement.

Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) have both launched bid rounds. EGPC is offering 11 exploration blocks in the Gulf of Suez, Western Desert and the Eastern Desert sedimentary basins, with bids due by 1 October. Egas is offering 16 blocks, 13 in the Mediterranean Sea and three in the onshore Nile Delta, with bids due by 8 October.

Gasol has agreed to buy upstream company Energie de Côte d’Ivoire (Enerci) from GDF Suez E&P International. Enerci is an Ivorian-registered company that owns a 12% stake in the gas-producing CI-27 licence that includes the Foxtrot field. “The acquisition provides us with an opportunity to bring a revenue-generating, profitable and self-funding asset into the group and, as such, represents a key milestone in our development as well as a stable, financeable cash-flow base from which to grow,” said Gasol chief operating officer Alan Buxton.

A wave of strikes at industrial facilities across the south has sent gas and other production plummeting – gas output fell to below 200mcf/d in March, and almost certainly further since then – and has led President Béji Caïd Essebsi to send in troops. The incidents confirm the extent that strikes, sit-ins and other protests continue to affect production and project implementation, six years after the Arab Spring.

Parliamentary approval for a deal to install up to 400MW at Tema opens the way for a power purchase agreement (PPA) to be signed by the Early Power Ltd consortium of Endeavor Energy, the local Sage Petroleum and GE. Local advocacy groups have raised concerns about pricing, but the Bridge Power project is the only new scheme working its way through the system. Other independent power projects (IPPs) have been stalled by World Bank and other donors’ concerns over financing.

With cabinet approval for a comprehensive new National Gas Policy (NGP) and ministers proposing other initiatives to drive the economy out of recession and improve living standards for the majority of Nigeria’s 186m population, President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration promises to implement genuine reforms that could eventually confirm Nigeria’s claim to become a major emerging market. Properly implemented, the NGP and associated policies could open the way for a functioning electricity supply industry to emerge.

In its latest annual medium-term gas market report, published in early June, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has revised downward its forecasts for global gas demand between 2014 and 2020. Planned supply, meanwhile, is abundant, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects competing not only against each other, and piped gas, but also against cheap coal and increasingly competitive renewable alternatives.Global gas demand is forecast to increase by an average 2%/yr to 2020, down from 2.3% over the past ten years, according to the IEA.

Symbion Power has announced that it has begun testing the turbines at the 120MW Ubungo power plant using gas supplied by a new pipeline from Mtwara. Ubungo, which has not been operating for more than a year due to gas shortages, used much more costly liquid fuels between 2012 and 2014. Gas from Mtwara is also expected to allow the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) to resume operations at some of its power plants.

The East Delta Electricity Production Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company, has issued tenders for the supply of equipment for the conversion of the 1GW El Shabab power plant near Ismailia from open cycle to combined cycle gas turbine technology.

BP has given contracts to McDermott International and Baker Hughes (BHGE) for subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (Surf) and subsea production system equipment for the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim natural gas project offshore Mauritania and Senegal. The companies are working together to realise efficiencies for the project, which reached a final investment decision in December.The initial subsea infrastructure will connect the first four of 12 wells consolidated through production pipelines leading to a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

Norway’s BW Offshore has formalised an agreement to take a 56% stake in the Kudu licence and develop the project to a final investment decision (FID) expected in Q4 2017. Past operators, including Tullow Oil and Royal Dutch Shell, have failed to develop the gas field, but BW says falling development and contractor costs now make the project more feasible. However, questions remain over the size of the reserves, and the development’s ability to compete with low-cost US shale gas imports.

With meetings and signings planned across London, several participants at the Africa Investment Exchange: Energy (AIX) meeting on 24-25 November had their eyes on the long-awaited financial close of the Azura-Edo independent power project (IPP). Azura’s success is crucial for the credibility of Nigeria’s efforts to bring private investment into the electricity supply industry. Azura is seen as a bellwether for the wider finance and developer communities, who are looking to a marked increase in privately financed IPPs and associated projects across the continent, including in the distribution sector, whose revenues are essential to underwrite the new generation companies.