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Doha-based Sphere Petroleum was launched in January 2007 as the first 100% foreign-owned company in Qatar. It was created out of the Perth-based Sphere Investments’ oil and gas assets, which were spun off. Sphere Investments – which took a secondary listing on Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) last July – is an Australian Stock Exchange-listed company with mining interests in West Africa, which has physically and financially shifted into the Gulf. Sphere Investments said “Qatar was selected as the preferred location for the new company due to the strong support from the Gulf region for our oil and gas strategy, oil and gas expertise and access to capital.”

With the first attempt at privatisation ending in disarray and the Bureau for Private Enterprises facing reorganisation, prospects look bleak for the divestment of Nigeria’s oil refineries, seen as essential to end chronic fuel shortages. On the plus side, a number of new projects are on the table, and although by no means all will see the light of day a few are making real progress, writes Leonard Lawal in Lagos.

Following on from the state Council for Oil and Gas Affairs’ decision to back a plan by the United Arab Emirates-based Star Consortium to upgrade and revamp Libya’s largest oil refinery, another project has emerged at Ras Lanuf, promoted by Canada’s Winfield Resources Ltd. Star Consortium, formed by TransAsia Gas International and Star Petro Energy, has committed to investing $2bn over a five-year period in a joint venture with the state National Oil Corporation (NOC). Its initial focus will be on refurbishing the Ras Lanuf export refinery, whose design capacity is approximately 220,000 b/d (AE 130/16).

The Polisario Front liberation movement’s government-in-exile, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), plans to launch its second licensing round in Houston on 5 February

Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil has kept to his word, announcing that regulator Agence Nationale pour la Valorisation des Ressources en Hydrocarbures (Alnaft) was finally ready to launch the prequalifying stage of the long-awaited ……….

While the focus has been on China, and to a lesser extent other emerging markets investors, less attention has been paid to Gulf-based investors’ drive to acquire African assets. But this is one of the most important recent trends affecting the continent’s resources industries, and especially upstream hydrocarbons. Eleanor Gillespie has been researching these companies to establish who the big players are.

BOWLEVEN: Gabon farmout to Addax; STERLING ENERGY: New banking facilities; WOODSIDE: Mauritania sale completed

Sonangol has prequalified 43 companies as operators and 38 companies as non-operators for the 2007-08 licensing round. These include some well-established Angolan players as well as some new names.

As Angola plans to raise output to 2m b/d, Total is looking further ahead, launching the Pazflor oil development on the prolific Block 17, writes Thalia Griffiths. Block 17 operator Total has awarded the main contracts for the Pazflor oil development, due on stream in 2011.

Kenya saw a rush to award new exploration licences before the elections because a change of government tends to slow the decision-making process. New arrivals included Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum, also present in neighbouring Sudan, and Canada’s Vangold Resources (AE 125/1).

Lundin Oil chairman Adolf Lundin has said he would welcome a formal inquiry by the Swedish government into his company’s operations in Sudan following a critical new report by Christian Aid reviving the controversy over the role of foreign oil companies in funding the government’s war against southern rebels.