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The target of finalising a host government agreement for the $30bn Lindi liquified natural gas (LNG) project by December was missed, due to the complexity of the negotiations.

AIM-listed Savannah Energy has taken over ExxonMobil’s stakes in the Doba oil project and Chad-Cameroon pipeline, but its plans to expand further in Chad have been undermined by the opposition of Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno’s transitional government to its acquisition of Malaysian national oil company Petronas’s 35% stakes in the projects. Authorities in N’Djamena blamed regional anti-trust laws, but the developments may also reflect volatile Sahel polities, writes Marc Howard.

Five more memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed in Rabat on 5 December, bringing more partners into the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) project.

Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo is looking to arrest the decline in its maturing crude oil acreage, which threatens Republic of Congo’s main source of income, but the national oil company’s biggest priority is to build up its natural gas resources, managing director Maixent Raoul Ominga told James Gavin.

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank)’s early October decision to commit $200m to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) provided a valuable slug of support to a project that has become increasingly toxic to western banks and insurers.

The question of how and whether financial institutions should support major energy projects that have fossil fuel components is prompting regulators and insurers to weigh up potential new rules, including re-examining the definition of terms like “ESG” (environmental, social and governance). 

Copper miners have called on the government to delay a planned reintroduction of import duties on fuel, saying it would increase costs at a time when the industry is already grappling with disruptions in the global supply chain caused by the Ukraine war and the Covid-19 pandemic.

A 30-year concession has been signed for rail services and logistical support for the 1,290km Lobito corridor, which connects Lobito port to Luau in Angola’s east, close to the DR Congo border. The corridor offers the shortest route for mined copper and cobalt from DRC and Zambia to reach a deep-water port. It also offers increased capacity for the transit of liquids and gases.

Loading of the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo from Eni’s 3.4m t/yr Coral Sul floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) plant is due to take place on 14 November, an industry source told African Energy.

Glencore received the ‘highest ever fines and costs ordered in a British corporate criminal conviction’, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office said after a London court found the resources giant guilty of graft – in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria – and of ‘failures to prevent bribery’ in Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan in 2011-14. Chastened once more after its practises were reported in eye-watering legal detail, Glencore has embarked on “an extensive programme of corporate reform”.

What will be Africa’s longest oil pipeline is now 30% complete and forecast to increase landlocked Niger’s oil exports tenfold in a ‘transformative’ Chinese-owned project that forms part of Beijing’s long-term play in the region. Other actors are looking to ramp up production using the infrastructure, with Niger – on the frontline of battle against jihadism in the Sahel – also being courted by the West.

London AIM-listed Savannah Energy has told African Energy that it hopes to start production from its Amdigh-1 well in the Agadem Rift Basin (ARB) in 2023.

The Niger-Benin Export Pipeline (NBEP), which will transport oil 1,982km from the Agadem Rift Basin (ARB) in Niger to Benin’s Atlantic oil terminal in Sèmè-Kraké port, may serve to revive Beninois crude production.  

Fuel smuggling is allegedly being carried out in the port of Benghazi in broad daylight, even as petrol stations in the city and elsewhere across the country run dry, showing how Libya’s hugely expensive fuel subsidy regime is malfunctioning. A recent auditor’s report has set out the costs of the wasteful system and pointed to billions of dollars of oil revenue that remain unaccounted for. John Hamilton investigates.

A new IMF programme, six years after the ‘tuna bonds’ scandal erupted, points to Filipe Nyusi’s success at surviving through difficult times but, with just two years left before his second term ends, the president still has to show he has created an environment able to deliver LNG mega-projects, as the insurgent challenge continues and rival factions line up for a succession, writes Tom Bowker.