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The existential threat to facilities in the Sirte Basin is growing while the prospects for a rapid, if partial, political solution to Libya’s crisis are diminishing. A second wave of attacks carried out by Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) on the Ras Lanuf and Sidra oil export terminals on 21 January has demonstrated definitively that the jihadist organisation intends to destroy oil production capability rather than exploiting it for commercial gain.

Even while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive board was praising the Brazzaville authorities’ commitment to reform, a recent IMF working paper underlined the extent of governance problems. Macro-Fiscal Gains from Anti-Corruption Reforms in the Republic of Congo, published on 3 June, observes that annual crude output was estimated at 86m bbls/yr between 1990 and 2018, making Congo sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest oil producer, but “oil revenue management and public investment spending occurred in a context where corruption is perceived to be prevalent as measured by a range of internationally recognised indicators relative to other countries in the SSA regions”.

International efforts to channel financial and technical support to Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s transitional administration will intensify when Berlin hosts a much-anticipated Sudan Partnership Conference on 25 June. Convened by Germany, Republic of Sudan, the United Nations and European Union, the conference follows initial talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a staff-monitored programme, which would be a significant move towards reintegrating Khartoum into a donor-backed reform process.

Houston-based Hyperdynamics has warned of renewed cash problems as legal costs related to its Guinea operations loom. Tullow Oil took over as operator in the country’s offshore acreage earlier this year and will carry Hyperdynamics for up to $100m on its share of costs of a well planned for H1 2014, but the company is in dispute with AGR Well Management over cost overruns from the Sabu-1 dry well drilled in 2011, and is also under investigation by the US Department of Justice over potential breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (AE 263/18).

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has debarred three former Alstom companies, now subsidiaries of GE Power, from participating in its projects for periods of 76 and 12 months after an investigation found that they had engaged in bribery and fraud in relation to contracts for the construction of two Egyptian power plants.

Leaders of the Group of Eight wealthiest countries gave their backing to the growing global transparency agenda at a summit in Northern Ireland on 17-18 June. The Lough Erne declaration pledged a ten-point plan covering a range of issues that were until recently solely the concern of transparency campaigners, including tax evasion, payment transparency and ending barriers to free trade.

Apparently enraged by the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (Ewura) decision on 29 December to approve an 8.53% increase in the power tariff – substantially less than the 18.19% increase Tanesco requested in its October application and on the back of a small price cut in April 2016 – President John Magufuli ordered the decision to be overturned and sacked Tanesco managing director Felchesmi Mramba on New Year’s Day. Magufuli said in a statement: “It’s unacceptable that while we are making plans to build manufacturing industries and ensure more citizens have access to electricity... that someone else uses his position to increase power tariffs.”

Rwanda’s style of governance was a positive factor in developing Gigawatt Global’s solar PV project. Developer Chaim Motzen told the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa’s annual conference in November that, “from the time we started negotiations [February 2013] to full production there were three ministers of infrastructure, two [ministers of state for] energy, three Rwanda Development Board heads and three heads of the utility”. Whereas in most countries such frequent churn in key institutions would be seen as a sign of instability, he claimed that in Rwanda it pointed to President Paul Kagame’s rigorous demands for maximum performance.

The US Treasury on 21 December placed sanctions on Israeli businessman Dan Gertler, a close business associate of President Joseph Kabila whose substantial mining and oil interests in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have long been controversial. The Treasury said Gertler had amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the DRC.

President Muhammadu Buhari has been preoccupied with fighting Boko Haram. In line with his inaugural pledge to reform the armed forces, the chiefs of the army, air force and navy were sacked on 13 July. A seven-month offensive by the militaries of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad has notched up a number of successes against the Islamist insurgent group, marked by the retaking of significant amounts of territory and increasing speculation surrounding the fate of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who has not been heard from since March.

Central bank governor Yussur Abrar, the first woman to occupy the post, has resigned after only seven weeks in the job, citing corruption concerns. In a letter to Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, widely reported in the media, she said that, from the moment she was appointed, she had “continuously been asked to sanction deals and violate my fiduciary responsibility to the Somali people as head of the nation’s monetary authority”. She said the deals “put… frozen assets at risk and open the door to corruption”.

The government has made a $350m payment to BG Group, reducing its outstanding debt to around $1.2bn. Egypt’s total arrears to foreign companies reached some $6.3bn in 2013, and the government has started paying off part of its debt to encourage companies to stay and continue investing in the upstream exploration and production sector. BG was obliged to declare force majeure on its liquefied natural gas agreements in January because of the quantity of gas diverted to the domestic market.

Nigeria’s Malabu Oil & Gas has brought a case at Southwark Crown Court in London appealing against the freezing of $85m in proceeds from the OPL 245 deal. The funds were frozen last year at the request of the Italian prosecutor amid an investigation into corruption at Eni relating to the granting of the licence. Malabu, owned by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete, is seeking the release of the funds, arguing that the Italian prosecutor was exceeding his powers in getting them frozen in the first place, and that nothing has happened with the Italian investigation to warrant their continued freezing.

Algeria’s lower house of parliament on 14 November approved the long-awaited – but hotly contested – revised hydrocarbons law, in the run-up to a presidential election announced for 12 December by interim president Abdelkader Bensalah. IOCs welcome the changes but will proceed with caution because Algeria remains a tough place to do business.

Events in South Africa, whose sovereign debt has been reduced to junk status by President Jacob Zuma’s crony capitalist rule, are another reminder that when power is exerted abusively shortfalls in governance can be highly damaging for the wider economy. This is also apparent in Democratic Republic of Congo’s minerals and Nigeria’s oil kleptocracies, which are both under renewed scrutiny, with international judicial authorities contemplating action against President Joseph Kabila’s long-time business partner Dan Gertler and sifting through new evidence against former Nigerian oil ministers from Dan Etete to Diezani Allison-Madueke.