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Insurers focusing on energy sectors appear cautiously optimistic, despite many parts of Africa experiencing economic, political or security volatility. Some insurers are expanding into new sectors, such as transmission and C&I power plants, buoyed by high demand for what is often an unsung, but important element in project and financial structures, writes Marc Howard.

Landlocked and energy-poor, eSwatini wants independent power producers to play a bigger role in building renewable energy capacity, as the kingdom strives to generate sufficient power and end years of over-dependence on imported electricity.

The World Bank Group (WBG) is back in the Grand Inga game, more than seven years after it suspended funding for the first phase of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) mega-scheme. However, with elections due to be held on 20 December across most of the country (some conflict zones are excluded) it is highly unlikely that President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo will have a breakthrough to announce before the sceptical electorate cast their votes.

To keep South Africa’s faltering flagship Just Energy Transition Programme (JETP) on the road, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and United Kingdom government approved a $1bn guarantee to allow the bank to increase its lending capacity to the programme.

The final COP28 communiqué included – for the first time – a commitment to eventually phase out fossil fuels, going beyond previous declarations that focused on coal. However, there are few signs that Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members and their Opec+ allies, led by Russia, have any intention of allowing their core source of revenues to disappear anytime soon. So what can we learn from recent statements by oil producers – including Opec+’s quota commitments at a meeting on 30 November – and from leaks and comments made during COP28?

Renewed momentum for nuclear energy was underlined by a COP28 climate summit pledge to triple global capacity by 2050 – although huge capital costs pose daunting obstacles to the several African countries who are looking at potential atomic power developments. A new generation of small reactors, while not yet commercially viable, may offer a solution for some to add significant capacity, writes Marc Howard.

Rivalry between the world’s two most powerful nations is driving a rush to build strategic export-focused railway infrastructure in Africa on a scale not seen since the height of the Cold War. Washington’s $500m commitment to the minerals export-focused Lobito Corridor has been countered by a $1bn Chinese proposal to rehabilitate the creaking Tazara line. The two megaprojects will have terminals close together in the Copperbelt, but geopolitical considerations are likely to prevent any interconnection, writes Marc Howard.

Publication of the 500th issue provides an opportunity to look back at a few triumphs and many missed opportunities in the industries African Energy has covered since it was launched in 1998. Industry and financial trends have evolved, and sometimes returned to haunt stakeholders years after they were thought to be history. One constant has been the huge increase in the continent’s population, which means the UN target of universal clean energy access is constantly pushed into the distance.

Vaalco Energy’s purchase of Svenska Petroleum Exploration will give the US indie a 27.4% interest in Block CI-40, which holds the producing Baobab field offshore Côte d’Ivoire, in a deal that further reduces beleaguered Saudi-Ethiopian tycoon Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi’s business empire.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has placed ownership of national utility Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) and six other companies into recently revamped sovereign wealth fund Mutapa Investment Fund’s portfolio, where they join the likes of National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, Petrotrade and Hwange Colliery. African Energy takes a closer look at questions surrounding the move and examines recent developments at Mutapa that have triggered some deeper controversy.

The Western Sahara government in exile achieved a diplomatic success in early May when a cargo of phosphate rock destined for New Zealand was intercepted and detained in South Africa. Polisario claimed Moroccan parastatal Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP) had produced the phosphate from its mines in the disputed territory. OCP at first tried to suppress the news in Morocco, where the territory is viewed as part of the kingdom.

On a wave of optimism about its offshore Rovuma Basin reserves, Mozambique has emerged as a poster boy for the ‘Africa rising’ agenda. With at least 100tcf of conventional gas reserves – and potentially more than double that amount, according to a range of project sources – this global-scale resource should drive the emergence of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export industry and substantial domestic and regional electricity supply in the next decade. Mozambique enthusiasts add that the country enjoys several other advantages, including proximity to markets and relatively streamlined decision-making (especially when compared to its potential rival for LNG export markets, neighbouring Tanzania).

Afren says it has passed information to the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) after an investigation uncovered new concerns over expenses payments. In a statement released late on Friday 20 March, Afren said reporting the concerns was a condition for the provision of interim funding from bondholders to keep the indebted company afloat. The concerns arise from an investigation by Willkie, Farr & Gallagher (WFG) regarding the hire of an individual in 2012, and the payment of travel and accommodation expenses connected to Afren’s activities, the company said.

Tullow Oil has announced that it plans to report payments for individual projects, not just on a country by country basis. “Tullow took an industry leading position in 2012 by declaring all of our payments to government and in 2013 when we bring out, we’re going to enhance that disclosure further by reporting on a project by project basis,” Tullow chairman Simon Thompson told a discussion entitled East Africa’s Oil and Gas Boom: Promise and Peril, organised by the Brookings Institution and Oxfam America on 20 February.

Liberia has enacted the new Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Law, which requires competitive bidding for all petroleum contracts, and that all oil companies declare their true owners. The interim management team (IMT) of the National Oil Company of Liberia (Nocal) has welcomed the new law, describing it as “a milestone achievement for the country’s emerging oil & gas sector”.