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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 European Union on 9 April reached a deal on a law that will require energy, mining and logging companies – public as well as private firms over a certain size – to declare payments over €100,000 ($130,000) made to governments. The rules will be incorporated in the EU’s Transparency and Accounting Directives. The law now requires a final vote in front of parliament, seen as a formality, anticipated in June.

DR CONGO: AfDB finance for Inga; LIBERIA: Official debt relief

UK-based private equity investor Actis has bought AES Corporation’s Cameroon power assets for $220m. The investment gives Actis a 56% stake in Société Nationale d’Electricité (Sonel), and in the 216MW Kribi combined cycle gas turbine power plant and the 85MW Dibamba heavy fuel oil plant. While Actis will manage Sonel directly, Globeleq, its private power company, will operate Kribi and Dibamba. The investment is part of Actis’ Energy 3 Fund, which launched in April this year and has raised $750m to target power assets in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The World Bank Group’s (WBG) International Development Association (IDA) on 26 April approved a $180m guarantee for national utility Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen). The guarantee, which will last for 15 years, is intended to support KenGen in raising up to $300m in long-term commercial debt during 2018-19. This will be used to refinance a costly portion of KenGen’s existing debt.KenGen is expected to play a major role in Kenya’s new-build programme and it must reduce its debt service obligations to finance new projects.

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”.

The official launch of the $850m Western Corridor Gas Infrastructure Development Project is now scheduled for October, once the overhaul of the Aboadze thermal plant is complete. The state Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC) is overseeing development and implementation of the three main aspects of the project: a processing plant in Atuabo, an offshore pipeline from the Jubilee field to Atuabo, and an onshore pipeline to transport processed gas from Atuabo to Aboadze. According to GNGC officials, the infrastructure is virtually complete. An official told African Energy that repairs to a 14km free span, where the gas pipeline is not fully supported on the sea bed because of an uneven surface, were completed on 18 July after several weeks of non-stop work.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia’s government is expected to revise the hydrocarbons law, which was passed in 2005 (Law 05-07) as a liberal document drawn up by then energy minister Chakib Khelil, but was then revised to take on a much more nationalist tone. Another revision, in 2013, disappointed international oil companies (IOCs) looking for more reasons to invest in Algeria, where IOC participation is restricted to 49% of a project’s equity and other terms are seen to strongly favour the government.

The African Development Bank board has approved a $144.9m loan for the Kenya-Tanzania Power Interconnection Project. The project involves the construction of a 508km, 400kV overhead double-circuit transmission line from Isinya substation in Kenya to Singida substation in Tanzania, as well as 400kV substations at Iringa, Dodoma, Singida, Shinyanga and Arusha in Tanzania. The line will transmit up to 2,000MW. A tender for the supervision and management of the project was issued last month.

Controversial South African businessman Moto Mabanga has failed in his bid to win more money from Ophir Energy for helping the company to secure acreage offshore Tanzania

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.

Zesco has drawn up plans to spend some $5bn over the next five years to expand its generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure and is now looking at ways to raise funds. But donor concerns are being raised about the sustainability of Zambia’s debt burden. Years of underinvestment in the power sector mean generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure has not kept pace with rising demand. State utility Zesco plans to spend an estimated $660m from its balance sheet this year to upgrade and expand power facilities, and a further 26.4bn kwacha ($4.7bn) over the next five years.

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 African Development Bank (AfDB) board approved a senior loan of up to $150m on 2 October for a 300MW mine-mouth coal power plant at Maamba and the refurbishment of the coal mine at the site. Maamba Collieries – a joint venture of Nava Bharat Singapore Ltd (65%) and government-owned Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (35%) – is developing the project to use the low-grade coal produced as a by-product of mining at the site which is at risk of spontaneous combustion.The project is expected to cost around $800m and will comprise two 150MW units, using two 510 TPH steam generators with circulating fluidised bed combustion. It is designed with the potential to expand to 600MW.