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A number of gas discoveries in recent months have encouraged Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap) to advance its development of the South Tunisia Gas Project (STGP), which it hopes will place the country among the ranks of gas exporters (AE 142/16).

Ahead of the 3 December bid submission deadline for the seventh licensing round, Algerian national oil company (NOC) Sonatrach is talking to five major operators about their potential participation in the largest and most complex element of the auction – to further explore and develop the substantial gas deposits identified in the Ahnet basin

Delays and renegotiations in Egypt as gas prices rise and politics flairs

Major production contracts that NOC has renegotiated with three of its major international partners over the past year have opened the door to the first EOR projects in veteran fields, writes John Hamilton, recently in Vienna.

As it looks for farm-in partners, PetroSA is making some very bullish statements about its north-west Sudan acreage, on Block 14. The South African explorer’s geoscience manager Dr Chris Davies said in Vienna on 5 November that the nearly 300,000km2 acreage had “significant potential”, with several structures identified

ANGOLA: Deep-water rig contract; ANGOLA: Block 31 topsides contract; EQUATORIAL GUINEA: MoU with Gazprom Neft; GABON: Crude output rise forecast; LIBYA: Tatneft tender

UK-registered Victoria Oil & Gas Plc (VOG) said on 28 October it had agreed a 12-month option to acquire Falcon Petroleum Ltd, which has assets in Ethiopia and Mali (AE 147/16). VOG is making efforts to

Austria’s OMV has made a condensate and gas find with the Sourour-1 exploration well in the Jenein Sud exploration permit, the fourth discovery in the permit within the last two years.

Warnings by presidential advisor Rilwanu Lukman that Nigeria’s oil refineries were on “the verge of collapse” have proved prescient. All four of the country’s plants, which are meant to process 445,000 b/d of crude, have stopped functioning.

Ahead of the promised law to break up Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), plans to privatise Products and Pipelines Marketing Company (PPMC) – which operates a network of petrol distribution pipelines and depots – and Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) have been shelved by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and NNPC group managing director Abubakar Lawal Yar’Adua.

Block 1 operator Heritage Oil has announced an oil discovery with the Warthog-1 well, the first to be drilled on the block. The well was drilled to a total depth of 911 metres and found a hydrocarbon-bearing interval of 150 metres, with 46 metres of net hydrocarbon pay.

Five Chinese oil workers taken hostage in South Kordofan have been killed by their captors, according to the Sudanese foreign ministry.

Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Ltd (TEPNG) has signed a contract with a consortium of Saipem, Ponticelli and Desicon to upgrade the Obite gas operation on OML 58, in a project that will boost gas supply to Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (NLNG) at Bonny and help cut flaring.

The African Development Bank has approved a senior loan of $150m through its Private Sector Window to finance BG’s Hasdrubal oil and gas field development project in the Gulf of Gabes (AE 140/14).

Feeling more politically assertive with a northerner in the presidency, and seeking to promote parastatals’ activity in developing infrastructure outside traditional growth areas, ‘northern elites’ are pushing NNPC and other companies to increase their activities in the politically powerful but economically under-developed region.