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The multi-donor Climate Investment Funds (CIF) has announced an agreement to provide Nigeria with $50m towards an African Development Bank-supported programme to promote investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency through local banks.
Concerns have been raised about plans to revise minerals legislation that would see the disbanding of the regulatory Petroleum Agency SA and give the state the right to a free carried interest in new contracts. The draft Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment 2012, which is chiefly aimed at reforming the mining industry, delegates all functions currently exercised by the Petroleum Agency to ‘regional managers’ of the Department of Mineral Resources who are responsible for handling mining applications.
As the standoff with Khartoum continues, South Sudan is looking at alternatives for its oil. Three refinery projects are in discussion and an export pipeline to Kenya seems increasingly likely, writes Richard Nield
On 16 January, the African Development Bank (AfDB) priced a $1bn fixed-rate US dollar global benchmark bond due 15 March 2018. The transaction pays a coupon of 0.875% and a spread of five basis points over mid-swaps, equivalent to 20.45 basis points over the UST 0.75% due 31 December 2017.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) board has approved a $24m equity investment in the Kampala-based East African Development Bank (EADB) to strengthen its balance sheet and help improve its international credit rating.
A bribery conviction against Griffiths Energy International has been welcomed as a sign that Canada is acting to tackle its reputation for being less tough on corruption than the US or UK, even though the company uncovered the payment itself, and reported it to the authorities.
African Barrick Gold (ABG) on 22 January announced the conclusion of negotiations with a commercial banks syndicate led by Standard Bank for the provision of a $142m export credit-backed term loan.
Griffiths Energy International has been hit with a record fine for paying bribes as part of its efforts to secure exploration acreage in Chad, after the company’s new management uncovered evidence of wrongdoing and reported it to Canadian police.
The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has announced plans to issue a $50m local currency bond (equivalent to 8bn naira) to support Nigeria’s domestic capital markets and increase access to local currency finance. The IFC Naija bond will be the corporation’s first naira-denominated bond and the first placement by a non-resident issuer in the country’s domestic capital markets.
The African Development Bank Group is expected to “receive the green light from our governors at our annual summit in Marrakesh in May” to return to its headquarters in Côte d’Ivoire after a decade in which the exiled multilateral has “enjoyed Tunisian hospitality”, AfDB president Donald Kaberuka said.
With Khartoum’s finances in disarray following South Sudan’s independence (it has lost nearly three-quarters of its crude production, which was around 450,000 b/d in H1 2011), China has agreed to provide support.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) board on 19 December agreed a $3m loan to Comoros to support energy sector reforms, particularly for electricity and financial governance. The reforms aim to strengthen the governance and performance of the energy sector so that it can support the country’s economic development, and to encourage the state to consolidate and deepen the reform of public finance management.
Moves to make the operations of national oil company Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC) and Republic of Congo’s management of revenues more transparent have slowed down in the past two years, according to sources in Brazzaville and abroad canvassed by African Energy.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) and African Development Bank (AfDB) have signed loan agreements totalling about $120m for the 120MW Itezhi-Tezhi hydro plant and transmission line project on the Kafue River. The AfDB’s loan of $55m was approved by the Bank board in June and signed on 19 December, while the EIB has agreed to provide €50m ($67m).
The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation has invested $127.5m in a $400m trade facility that will finance Mauritania’s entire refined energy import needs for the next two years.
