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The World Bank Group approved a total of $3.6bn in financing for renewable energy projects worldwide in FY2012, a record 44% share of its annual energy lending of $8.2bn

The UK-Africa Investment Summit, which brought an impressive number of heads of state and government to London on 20-21 January, was a ceremony to mark UK ambitions to create a ‘Global Britain’ following Brexit and still be seen as a major player in Africa. It was cast in the mould of similar events hosted by France, the United States (during Barack Obama’s presidency), Japan, Germany and Russia, as well as the triennial Sino-African summits that underline China’s African business dominance.

While the government quietly accelerates reforms to counter pressures that have exploded in Tunisia and Egypt, the state energy giant is preparing new management structures that should speed implementation of major projects

The confirmation by Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 30 July election victory was above board brushed aside opposition MDC Alliance complaints, along with growing international scepticism about the hotly disputed poll. Violent scenes in Harare following the results’ announcement raised concerns that the new administration may yet have more in common with the dark years of Robert Mugabe’s rule than with Mnangagwa’s loudly proclaimed “open for business” policy. Mnangagwa was sworn in on 26 August but has yet to appoint his cabinet or a vice-president.

The 22 January announcement that Globeleq and its partner IPS had reached financial close for the 253MW expansion of their 460MW Azito gas-fired plant at Yopougon, near Abidjan, was timed to coincide with a visit to London by an Ivorian delegation led by President Alassane Dramane Ouattara for the UK-Africa Summit. General Electric will provide gas turbine technology and services for the Phase IV project. The new and enlarged 20-year Azito concession agreement underscores Côte d’Ivoire’s ability to finance major private sector infrastructure projects.

Personalities remain a key factor in shaping a continent trying to emerge from lost decades of ‘big man’ politics. While the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) made much of efforts to create a post-conflict ‘developmental state’ in the last two decades, modern Ethiopia was fashioned in the image of the late Meles Zenawi, who harnessed an intolerant, Tigrayan-dominated political system to a rigid but fast-growing (if unbalanced) economy.

President Yoweri Museveni has carried out a major cabinet shuffle, moving Daudi Migereko from energy and minerals, and giving the finance portfolio to ultra-loyalist Syda Bbumba, a former energy minister and an economist by training.

US oil industry lobbying groups have filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking to overturn new transparency legislation

Rising concern that the government will use its revised mining law to obtain a bigger yield from investors on existing projects has been reflected in comments by AngloGold executive Gary Davies, who told Reuters that “those contracts should be honoured because they’ve made an investment for the long term”.

Fighting has continued to threaten oilfield security in South Sudan’s main oil producing states of Unity and Upper Nile in recent weeks, but production has remained more or less steady at about 165,000 b/d, according to oil industry sources. Government oil sales, meanwhile, have increased by 1m barrels a month. The government closed a tender on 7 May for the sale of 3.8m barrels of Dar Blend crude from Upper Nile. Four contracts were awarded: one of 600,000 barrels and three of 1m barrels. The 600,000-barrel contract was won by Glencore.

Pressures on utilities and other state-owned enterprises will be a greater feature in the 2020s than in earlier debt crises. Reforms to the continent’s largest energy enterprises, Eskom and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, are integral to their macroeconomies emerging stronger. Unravelling the problems of malfunctioning parastatals in economies from Ghana to Madagascar already play a central role in governments’ reform commitments. Madagascan utility Jiro sy Rany Malagasy (Jirama) has attracted considerable funds to support its reform.

The government is considering various options to increase the capital of Rwanda Energy Group (REG) in order to finance planned infrastructure development. Corporate communications adviser Prosper Mubera Birori told African Energy one possibility was to bring in a strategic investor who would acquire an equity stake in the group as a whole, or in REG’s Energy Utility Corporation Limited (EUCL) subsidiary, which is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the existing generation plants, the transmission and distribution network, and selling electricity to end-users.

Sonatrach’s ability to supply enough gas to meet its international contracts continues to be the subject of speculation in the international markets. Sales to southern Europe have fallen sharply in recent years, mainly as a result of mutually agreed reductions in offtake. So the extent to which production bottlenecks may create greater problems for Algeria’s clients in Italy, Spain and elsewhere in Europe continues to be a matter of conjecture. However, what is certain is that pipeline exports are relatively far down Algeria’s list of priorities for gas usage. The current focus for concern over supplies is Spain. A financial source warned African Energy in early June that “infrastructure issues and local demand” might “start to impact gas exports from Algeria into Spain quite meaningfully”.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has described energy supply as the most difficult problem facing Ghana, and has announced a review of existing power purchase agreements (PPAs). In his first state of the nation address on 21 February, Akufo-Addo told parliament the sector’s key problem was the cost of energy, and highlighted the growing debt burden of the various state companies. He said that, while power from the Akosombo dam cost $0.03/kWh to produce, the business tariff of $0.42/kWh was more than ten times the average in West Africa.

Licence awards to unknown companies have caused a storm in Sierra Leone, with government officials blaming a ‘transparent’ process imposed on them by external consultants for the controversy. Thalia Griffiths and Eleanor Gillespie investigate the exploration boom in an emerging Transform Margin play.