Search results

Libya is sinking deeper into a state of extreme political uncertainty as Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dabaiba and his Government of National Unity (GNU) cling to power in defiance of attempts by other state institutions to appoint a new administration. With every day that Dabaiba holds on, the more likely it becomes he will continue in office, in some form at least. The pressure is therefore on Prime Minister-designate Fathi Bashaga to not only appoint but also to install his government in Tripoli as soon as possible.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s first budget speech was welcomed as another safe budget in a long history of safe budgets in South Africa. But the challenges facing the government continue to mount: the National Treasury expects the economy to grow by 2.1% in 2022, dropping to 1.8% over the medium term.

Ignoring pressure on him to stand down, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba has authorised the Ministry of Finance to pay for a major new oil refinery in south-west Libya. The project is already the subject of an intricate financing scheme

Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Mustafa Sanalla says outgoing Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dabaiba’s Government of National Unity (GNU)’s failure to pay the national oil company’s budgets means oil production could fall at any moment – and there is no scope to increase gas exports to Italy.

Harare City Council (HCC) has suspended a joint venture with Dutch firm Geogenix, just a few weeks after the investor started work on a recycling facility and a 22MW waste-to-energy plant at the city’s Pomona dump site.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on 14 July named a new finance minister to replace Abderrahmane Raouya, who was sacked.

Progress in Kenya's energy sector has been mixed under President Uhuru Kenyatta. His successor will inherit an electricity supply industry (ESI) lacking strong unifying leadership at troubled utility Kenya Power – which is part-way through a turnaround – and at the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA), as well as strained relations with many private investors. Other items in the next government’s in-tray will be the long-delayed auctions for renewable energy (RE) projects, as well as power market deregulation and implementation of the net-metering policy.

Algerian leaders have been enjoying the extent to which markets have shifted since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, allowing Sonatrach to deflect any downside from the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (GME)’s closure as it redirects gas away from Spain to other more favoured European partners – all the while maintaining the regime’s traditionally strong strategic relationship with Russia. As widely predicted, Italy is the major initial beneficiary.

As the anniversary of Sudan’s 25 October 2021 coup approaches, General Abdel-Fatah Burhan’s efforts to re-establish a military-led framework that can secure western funding while also keeping ties with powerful Russian and Gulf allies continues with little expectation of imminent success. That is bad news for a country whose eviscerated economy was hoping for lift-off last year, as the United States began to wind down sanctions and allow debt relief.

An early September judgement confirming the Eastern Cape High Court’s rejection of Shell’s attempt to conduct seismic surveys along South Africa’s eastern coast will leave the government – and oil companies – with plenty of food for thought, as South Africa and many other countries look to produce more hydrocarbons in sensitive environments, James Gavin writes.

LNG projects have faced a buffeting amid the security crisis in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region. While the timeline for Eni’s 3.4m t/yr Coral South floating LNG project looks robust, bigger schemes face further delays as a shaken gas sector takes account of an insurgency that can no longer be ignored – and which also poses questions about stability in southern Tanzania as a new leadership there makes soothing noises about investment, write James Gavin and Marc Howard.

The military junta that deposed President Alpha Condé remains insistent that it’s taking a ‘business as usual’ approach as it starts discussions over the formation of a new government, but the outlook for Guinea’s political landscape, and the energy sector, remains up in the air, writes David Slater

According to the most widely accepted version of still hazy events, President Idriss Déby Itno (IDI) was injured on 17-18 April fighting rebels near Mao in the Kanem region, some 300km from N’djamena; he was pronounced dead early on 20 April. The military leader, who became president in 1990, had just been re-elected (with 79.32% of the official vote) for a sixth term in a vote on 11 April.

The final result could take days more, but leaks from initial counting suggested incumbent president Alpha Condé will win the 18 October election without a need for a second round, having polled far more heavily than his 11 opponents.

After a decade of conflict that has threatened to submerge the Malian state, the ‘transition government’ of prime minister Moctar Ouane had a big agenda to fulfil before elections were due to held in Q1 2022.