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Cameroon hopes to license blocks in the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula following settlement of the long-running border dispute with Nigeria.

Zesco and senior officials are determined to press ahead with tariff increases despite the stalling of a cost-of-service study that was intended to form the basis of a new multi-year tariff determination. Negotiations have been under way since last year with large consumers, mostly mines, which are still in the process of agreeing an interim tariff. However, failure to complete the study could have implications for negotiations with the miners, who have used Zesco’s governance and performance to resist tariff increases in the past.

Libya’s opening up has impressed international oil companies, but the Jamahiriya (State of the Masses) retains its capacity to surprise investors. Newspapers Al-Shams

The protracted resignation of Robert Mugabe was met with relief and elation in Zimbabwe, and much further afield by those who have seen one of Africa’s most promising countries driven into misery by the former guerrilla fighter’s capricious 37-year rule. Many Zimbabweans of all political tendencies celebrated the prospect that “it is our time now”, rather than facing the prospect that the 93-year-old president may force his wife Grace Mugabe on the country.

South Sudan plans to divert the vast majority of its share in June crude production to Khartoum in response to calls from Sudan for Juba to step up repayments of arrears. A 600,000-barrel cargo to be lifted from Port Sudan on 7-8 June was due to be awarded to Dutch trader Trafigura, but Juba reallocated the cargo for marketing by the Sudanese Petroleum Corporation (SPC), Sudan’s state-owned oil operator.It is the second time the government of South Sudan (GoSS) has done this.

Even before the death on 23 December of deputy defence minister and chief of staff Ahmed Gaïd Salah, major political issues remained to be resolved before Algeria could reasonably look forward to a stable future. The Hirak protest movement, which has been active since last February – removing enfeebled president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April – continues to call for root-and-branch political change during weekly mass demonstrations. Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected president on 12 December; he has appointed a new government under a little-known prime minister, Abdelaziz Djerad, which includes many familiar faces, including energy minister Mohamed Arkab.

The revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia during the first part of the year affected the company’s gas production in both countries, but operations are returning to normal. Fears that a week-long blockade of BG Group’s offices in the town of Nakta could lead to a shutdown of its Tunisia operations have receded after the company committed to employing more local staff and made other concessions.

Canada will require extractives companies listed on its stock exchanges or based in the country to disclose their payments under the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, which came into force on 1 June. The act was passed into law on 16 December 2014 and, after 1 June, all extractives companies subject to the act will be required to report payments including taxes, royalties, fees and production entitlements of $100,000 or more to all levels of government in Canada and abroad.

The Al-Nawasi Brigade is one of a handful of militias that now control Tripoli and most of the government entities there. Together with the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, the Special Deterrence Force (Rada), and the Abu Slim unit of the Central Security Apparatus, they have taken over the main functions of the police and the military. These groups trace their origins back to the local groups that organised resistance to the Qadhafi regime during the 2011 revolution, but in reality they established themselves as protection rackets in the lawlessness that followed.

The lightning takeover of export terminals by Libyan National Army (LNA) forces under the command of General Khalifa Haftar has thrown Libya’s struggling political process into a state of confusion from which it is unlikely to recover. Intended as a move to destabilise the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and its Presidency Council (PC), it may well lead to their collapse. If so, this would also fatally undermine the policy pursued for the past 18 months by western European governments and the United States via the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (Unsmil).

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government has appointed recruitment consultants to find new senior management to revive the national utility as it seeks to play a positive role in reinforcing the dilapidated transmission and distribution system and supporting increased domestic generation and import capacity.Lands, mines and energy minister Patrick Sendolo told African Energy the government saw Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC)’s weaknesses as “a key constraint” to overhauling the power sector, but the utility was not in a fit state for privatisation. Even though, as a rule “government companies don’t work”, Monrovia had decided to keep LEC in public hands for now, he said in Hamburg on 5 May.

With new generation capacity increasing fuel costs, electricity tariffs will rise from 1 January 2018 for the first time since 1994. A cabinet meeting on 6 October approved new tariffs for end-users of electricity services supplied by Société Nigérienne d’Electricité (Nigelec) for the period 2018 to 2022. The government’s decision is based on a tariff study commissioned by the Autorité de Régulation du Secteur de l’Energie au Niger.

For the past several months, Egypt’s domestic gas deficit has effectively been made up by five cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplied for free by Qatargas. These cargoes were paid for by the Qatari state and delivered to offtaker clients of the Idku LNG export terminal, enabling the authorities to keep more production for the domestic market. On 10 September, Qatargas confirmed to African Energy that no negotiations were under way for the delivery of further cargoes. Although it was embarrassed by the military’s removal of Mohammed Morsi, Qatar honoured the promise made in June to the Muslim Brotherhood administration to supply it with free gas over the summer. It delivered two cargoes to BG Group in August, which sent them to customers in Asia. These quantities replaced production that had been diverted from Idku to meet shortfalls in the domestic market. BG’s partner in Idku, GDF Suez, is understood to have redirected two cargoes to clients in Europe and is due a third.

the 31 December deal between opposition parties and Joseph Kabila Kabange, brokered by the Roman Catholic Bishops Conference and supported by the international community, should lead to elections by year-end and the president’s eventual departure. This would do much to clarify Democratic Republic of Congo’s future direction, from developing the Inga dam to establishing a path of improved governance and economic recovery (AE 325/22, 320/1).

The announcement by interim President Abdelkader Bensalah that Algeria will not, after all, hold a presidential election on 4 July points to many more months of political unpredictability. Protests remain largely peaceful, but there is a growing prospect of turmoil as a ruling elite led by deputy defence minister and army chief of staff Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaïd Salah seeks to outflank a popular protest movement whose leadership remains defined by its anonymity.