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Some African governments specialise in grandiose statements about mega-projects that will drive the continent’s electrification or achieve some other transformational goal. In many cases little happens, but the mega-project provides a useful symbol of rapprochement between two states. The Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) planned by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika is one example still prominent on the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa project list.

The issues that African Energy covers have risen much higher up the global agenda than seemed likely when the first issue was published in April 1998, when global concern about sub-Saharan Africa’s struggle to provide electricity to hard-pressed populations and industrial users, and the continent’s potential to provide energy to a fast-changing global economy driven by growth in emerging markets, seemed considerably less than now.

This year has seen policy-makers reassess their responses to the impacts of renewables and distributed (off-grid) technologies, while analysts focus on how changing consumer behaviours could radically change the global energy industry. Conservative development finance institutions have bought into the ‘off-grid revolution’ – underlined by the World Bank’s decision to end decades of support for upstream oil and gas projects – and even the most petrol-headed of oil majors have changed their traditional tone, highlighted by ExxonMobil’s 11 December announcement that it will start publishing reports on the possible impact of climate policies on its business.

In this still young century, China has emerged as by far Africa’s biggest economic partner, establishing a vast footprint across the continent at breakneck speed. As many ties with the west have declined – especially following the 2008-09 global financial crisis – Chinese engagement shows no sign of diminishing. This will be underlined when heads of state gather in Beijing for the next Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit in September.

Competition is believed to be intense as bidding closes to take over Sasol’s 50% stake in the Rompco pipeline, which runs 865km from the Temane gas field in Mozambique to Sasol’s Secunda complex in Mpumalanga.

The Zambian government’s refusal to make a $42.5m interest payment by its 13 November deadline – thereby triggering a sovereign debt default – was hardly a surprise. The investor appetite that persuaded lenders to pile into $3bn-worth of Eurobonds has waned on President Edgar Lungu’s watch, while Covid-19 and falling commodity prices have affected sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the region’s economy will contract by 3% in 2020 and its forecast 3.1% growth in 2021 will be “a smaller expansion than expected in much of the rest of the world”.

Southern African governments have been slow to recognise the potential of regional power pools to draw investment into their countries. Most have seen the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) through a resource nationalist lens...

TotalEnergies’ latest Strategy and Outlook paper, Building a sustainable multi-energy company, offers a heavily-illustrated, if light-on-detail, glimpse of how the corporate giants formally known as ‘oil majors’ may change in the coming decade. The document, presented at a 28 September shareholders meeting, is strong on TotalEnergies’ plan for “reinvention”, from being a bad old oil major to one with a cleverly constructed – and often very valuable – sustainable energy strategy.

Too often ignored except in times of extreme crisis, Lesotho is looking to emerge from years of political instability and economic malaise under previous coalition governments, as the Basotho population counts on newly-elected tycoon Prime Minister Sam Matekane to usher in transformative change.

African nations, the governments of partner countries, international financial institutions (IFIs) and private investors are increasing their commitments to achieving universal energy access, the seventh of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDG7). But the prospects of reaching the SDG7 target by 2030 are receding as population numbers continue to rise. A daunting amount of work remains to be done if SDG7 is to be achieved. In a newly published report commissioned by the Africa-EU Energy Partnership (AEEP), Cross-border Information – the parent company of African Energy – has analysed financial flows towards SDG7 over the past seven years and their estimated potential trajectories to 2030 and beyond.

African electricity markets are on the threshold of genuine reform in 2024, even if policy-makers’ grandest ambitions are destined to meet with disappointment. African Energy has examined the first data that has emerged from the third development phase of the African Union’s Continental Master Plan and found much to applaud.

Production cuts by a majority of Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) producers, working in coordination with non-Opec exporters led by Russia, have helped to raise oil prices from their 2014-16 lows; the strategy seems likely to maintain crude benchmarks at around $50 for some time. While second-guessing the oil price is a hazardous business, African Energy’s soundings of major international oil companies (IOCs) suggest this represents a ‘new normal’ for the industry, as factored into corporations’ base case scenario-planning.

The recent increase in oil prices will be especially welcomed by Central Africa’s small but dominant ruling elites. The stand-off over Gabon’s presidential election – with Jean Ping contesting the narrow victory announced for President Ali Bongo Ondimba, his former brother-in-law whom he served as foreign minister – is just the most recent manifestation of political turbulence in a region where vulnerable economies have been rendered even more fragile by the slump in the global commodities cycle. Suggestions that Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso and allies close to the presidency in Côte d’Ivoire might have supported Ping against Bongo point to the network of close contacts that still typifies the region’s murky politics.

Updated forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show global expansion weakening with the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) growing by an estimated 3.7% in 2018, and forecast at 3.5% in 2019 and 3.6% in 2020. The projections are downward revisions from October’s World Economic Outlook (WEO), in part reflecting the trade war between the United States and China. A tightening of the Chinese economy may be reflected in Beijing’s reappraisal of lending to sub-Saharan Africa.

There may be strong economic arguments, as well as the ethical objections raised by campaigners, why development finance institutions (DFIs) should no longer focus on supporting extractives-led growth. A Chatham House research paper* asks whether such models of development are still appropriate as the global economy reduces its carbon dependency. Discussion of the paper at the Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy conference in Oxford on 26-27 September tested the thesis made popular among DFIs during the long commodities boom that exploiting natural resources could end aid dependency and drive socio-economic development.