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Operations and maintenance work at the 41MW Metoro solar plant in north-eastern Cabo Delgado province were halted on 7 June after armed attacks in the region. In another incident soon afterwards, Australian Stock Exchange-listed Triton Minerals said its graphite mine in Ancuabe, 45km west of Pemba, was attacked on 8 June by armed groups.

Kenyan elections always raise tensions and, sometimes, expectations – and opinion polls point to a close race for the presidency, in an important and tightly contested election in early August. The candidates’ energy policies look similar on paper, but investors expect very different approaches to emerge.

By replacing Mustafa Sanalla as NOC chairman with Qadhafi-era central bank governor Farhat Bengdara, Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dabaiba has bought himself time and granted a major concession to his chief opponent, Khalifa Haftar. This potentially opens the door to some kind of compromise – but how a critical institution that has maintained operational independence and kept Libyan oil flowing throughout 12 years of conflict survives the change is another question.

“I will never abandon you,” President Ali Bongo Ondimba told his fellow citizens in an emotional Independence Day address on 17 August, talking of “great ambitions” for his country “in the months and years to come.”

President João Lourenço and his ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) were declared the winners in Angola’s 24 August general election. Equally predictably, the opposition led by the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (Unita) has contested the result, which was announced on 29 August by the National Electoral Commission (CNE).

Environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth (Fote) received High Court permission on 22 April to take the British government to court over its financial support via UK Export Finance (Ukef) for the Total-operated Mozambique Liquefied Natural Gas (MLNG) scheme. Legal proceedings are another complication for MLNG, which has been badly affected by the conflict in the Rovuma Basin, prompting Total to declare force majeure in recent days.

 The Islamist uprising in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province reached a new level of intensity when hundreds of militants attacked Palma on 24 March; the insurgents occupied the town for over a week. The Mozambique Armed Defense Forces (FADM) said on 4 April it had retaken control, but the state’s inability to protect its citizens and its largest foreign investor was plain to see as the jihadists carried out a swift, complex attack in which all its security forces were either killed or deserted.

With sky-high prices apparently a thing of the past, the outlook is gloomy for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, even in the most lucrative markets, such as Japan. With a predicted supply glut running into the next decade and price pressures accentuated by the fast-emerging spot market (for more on this see African Energy’s sister publication Gulf States News http://www.gsn-online.com/amid-shifting-global-gas-supply-gulf-states-emerge-as-their-own-best-market) only a few major projects are still expected to go ahead worldwide. In Africa, these include Eni’s Zohr field in Egypt and developments in Mozambique’s Rovuma Basin (as well as its smaller, more southerly fields supplying South Africa).

Despite a five-fold increase in installed capacity over the past decade Guinea’s electricity supply industry will need huge investment to keep pace with growing demand, unlock stranded generation and increase low levels of access. The government is turning to mining companies to help finance this expansion, writes David Slater.

A pattern of similar traits is discernable in the spate of coups d’état that have shaken assumptions about governance across Francophone West Africa – a region which has experienced six putsches since August 2020, when Colonel Assimi Goïta first took over in Mali, after three decades of post-Cold War democratisation.

Autocratic Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno may not be a leader to suit everybody’s taste, but his deployment of troops against Nigeria’s Boko Haram militants – as against jihadists in Mali two years ago – has confirmed his reputation as a regional leader who understands the need to counter a threat proactively. By comparison, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan does not come out well: with his forces seen as ineffective, if not part of the problem, in countering Boko Haram, the ‘accidental president’ has kept a low profile as north-eastern states have borne the brunt of jihadist assaults.

With revenue heavily dependent on oil receipts, the collapse in crude prices has left public sector finances in dire straits, reigniting talk of removing fuel subsidies. However, after weeks of silence, the government has deferred a decision, saying it will handle the issue with care. Buhari was quoted by spokesman Garba Shehu as saying: “When you touch the price of petroleum products, that has the effect of triggering price rises on transportation, food and rent.”

Scores of people have been killed in a Boko Haram attack on a military-escorted oil exploration team in the Magumeri area of Borno State. The Vanguard newspaper said 19 soldiers, 33 civilian militia and 17 civilians were known to have been killed in the attack on 25 July, while minister of state for petroleum resources and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) board chairman Ibe Kachikwu said the military was still collecting information and could not confirm the death toll.

Africa’s largest economy is finally moving to resolve some of its most chronic failings, with another effort to privatise five power plants, huge multilateral support for the insolvent transmission and distribution sector, the planned implementation of the Petroleum Industry Bill and commitments to further reforms. Even so, African Energy’s research suggests the expected upturn will come nowhere close to meeting Nigeria’s needs in the period to 2025. Jon Marks* asks whether results can at least get closer to the promises of Nigeria’s electricity supply industry.

Supporters of a revamped Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) believe that, this time, the outcome for legislation to reform Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the hydrocarbons sector will be different from past disappointments, when vested interests stalled efforts to overhaul an underperforming and opaque sector. Senate president Ahmad Lawan on 29 September committed the bicameral National Assembly to pass legislation to make the industry more effective and efficient. After years of delay,“we will break that jinx and see to the passage of the bill”, Lawan promised. The Senate on 30 September approved the a 239-page draft PIB’s first reading, opening the way for more hearings.