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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.

The government is hopeful that the deadlock holding up the introduction of the much-delayed sovereign wealth fund (SWF) will be overcome soon, minister of state for finance Yerima Ngama told the 5 February UK-Nigeria Bilateral Banking, Finance and Investment Development Conference in London.

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.

Having passed the much-anticipated Petroleum Act 2012, and with the expectation that it will soon pass the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill 2012, South Sudan’s National Legislative Assembly is putting in place the key legislation to regulate the oil industry and revenue flows. This is much to be welcomed, advocacy group Global Witness said on 29 November as it unveiled a report on oil transparency in the new republic. The “legislation contains strong public reporting, revenue management and contract allocation requirements,” Global Witness campaigner Dana Wilkins said.

The Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) announced on 18 April that it had launched a “massive disconnection exercise” in response to customers’ failure to pay their bills. “This has come as a result of a huge debt owed to the authority by government ministries, departments, agencies and business houses,” an EDSA notice said. “The authority cannot sustain adequate supply of electricity to customers without the much-needed finance to pay for power produced by Electricity Generation and Transmission Company and other independent power producers (Addax and Aggreko).”

Provided they are supported by evidence, recent allegations in leaked US diplomatic cables could lead western donors to scrutinise Mozambican financing requests more severely – especially if President Guebuza’s alleged interest in Insitec is confirmed.

Hundreds of businesses, including many oil service providers, engineering and construction companies, are preparing to make billions of dollars-worth of claims against the new Libyan government for losses and damage sustained during the six-month revolution.

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.

The publication of Algeria’s Energy Future brings data into the public domain that show how Sonatrach expects gas output to decline, adding to pressures to develop non-conventional reserves, as well as the underperforming non-hydrocarbons economy.

A recent report by the Ministry of Finance indicates that the new Exploration and Production Bill has been submitted to the Attorney General for final comments and will be put to parliament in the near future. The law, whose drafting began in 2010, aims to provide a comprehensive legal framework for the oil and gas industry to replace the 1984 law, creating a new regulator and transforming Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) into a commercial entity. The slow pace of drafting has been criticised because the new regulatory framework comes more than two years after Ghana started to produce oil.

There has been material progress reforming Angola’s opaque and nepotistic energy sector over the past year. Considerable work has gone into crafting new power sector regulations, and there have been notable changes to upstream licensing and the role of state oil and gas giant Sonangol, as well as important reforms to the downstream hydrocarbons sector. Investors and analysts canvassed by African Energy were impressed by the extent of the changes, although plenty of problems remain to be resolved.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague was due to rule on 2 February on whether it has jurisdiction to hear the dispute between Somalia and Kenya over their shared maritime border in the Indian Ocean. Somalia referred the dispute to the ICJ in 2014 (AE 325/18). Kenya maintains that the boundary should be a straight line running directly east from the point at which the two countries meet on land, while Somalia proposes that the boundary should follow a median line broadly equidistant from both coastlines in accordance with clause 15 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Angolan opposition leader Isaías Samakuva is highlighting the ruling party’s continued failure to deliver basic services following last year’s elections, the second since the civil war ended a decade ago. Visiting the United States and Europe in late April and early May, he repeatedly warned his interlocutors that they should not be misled by the apparent calm in the country. “Angola is sitting on a powder keg,” the leader of the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (Unita) told African Energy in an interview, saying that Angolans were urging his party to organise protests against the lack of power, water and health services.

The new president’s appointment of Mohamed Lamine Fofana as mines minister keeps a familiar face in charge of a key sector that provides 80% of Guinea’s foreign currency earnings

With the World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB) lining up behind a public/private partnership structure, it seemed possible that the elusive Inga dam development – now promoted by the African Union as a cornerstone of its initiative to overcome sub-Saharan Africa’s gaping electricity supply deficit – might finally happen. Concerted opposition to big-ticket hydroelectric power schemes led by International Rivers and other advocacy groups seemed to have been overcome, as reflected in ambitious plans for the 4,800MW Inga III. But in recent months that opposition has re-emerged as a potent force, again putting Inga III into question.