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Faced with the embarrassing fact that just two countries met the 9 March validation deadline, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has delayed a decision on what it should do with the other candidates until next month’s board meeting in Berlin.

The introduction of fresh regulations for Sonatrach’s tendering process could release a large backlog of projects at the company within weeks.

The Brazzaville government has received some reward for the closure in 2008 of Congolaise de Trading (Cotrade), the controversial marketing arm of parastatal Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC) that was chaired by the president’s son, Denis-Christel Sassou Nguesso. Cotrade’s closure came after pressure from the International Monetary Fund and, on 28 January, the World Bank and IMF announced an agreement that will allow Republic of Congo to reduce its external debt by $1.9bn and benefit from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.

The controversial marketing company Congolaise de Trading was the product of what officials call “a past phase” in Congo-B politics. In 1998, soon after returning to power, President Denis Sassou Nguesso discovered that French oil company Elf (since merged into Total) was fraudulently representing its Congo-B production operations.

Jacob Zuma’s government has stuck to a conservative budget and remains committed to further reforms to the state sector, notably of the electricity industry.

More heads could roll following the crisis at Sonatrach as rival factions battle it out. Following the arrests that have savaged state hydrocarbons company Sonatrach’s senior management team, energy and mines minister Chakib Khelil stands at the centre of the ‘perfect storm’ that has engulfed Algerian politics (AE 179/1).

The discreet but intense battle between Tullow and Eni over the sale of Heritage Oil’s Uganda acreage, and investigations and mud-slinging around Ghana’s Jubilee field show how politics can severely complicate the oil industry’s approach to new frontiers, write Thalia Griffiths, Our Accra Correspondent and Jon Marks

The government is determined to hold a licensing round by year-end for onshore and offshore fields – as forecast by African Energy (AE 179/19) – in a very difficult political environment.

ERHC ENERGY: AIM listing plans; TG WORLD: Loan facility, Niger hopes

Speculation is growing that the political order has changed in important ways in recent weeks, during which ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has remained in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment amid growing concern that a dangerous power vacuum is growing. Most analysts still believe Yar’Adua will hold on to his job for as long as he lives

Critics argue that for all the talk of reform in the past two decades, elements of the Algerian state remain rotten at their core. Other observers say the situation has improved markedly during the Bouteflika years, and “technical irregularities” of the sort that have overwhelmed Sonatrach’s senior cadres will be quickly overcome. According to Algerian and international business sources contacted by African Energy,

Cameroon hopes to license blocks in the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula following settlement of the long-running border dispute with Nigeria.

Investigations into the business dealings of chairman Mohammed Meziane, three influential vice presidents and other senior executives point to corruption at the highest levels of Sonatrach.

The Christmas day attack on a flight bound for Detroit in the United States by well-heeled Nigerian student turned radical jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was an acute embarrassment to the Nigerian government. It not only forced the US Transportation Security Administration to add the Nation to its watch list of 14 countries

World leaders failed to secure a binding global treaty on reducing carbon emissions at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen – not least due to opposition from a radical group including Venezuela and Sudan, as well as differences between global giants led by the United States and China. Leaders did secure a deal to limit