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Gasol has agreed to buy upstream company Energie de Côte d’Ivoire (Enerci) from GDF Suez E&P International. Enerci is an Ivorian-registered company that owns a 12% stake in the gas-producing CI-27 licence that includes the Foxtrot field. “The acquisition provides us with an opportunity to bring a revenue-generating, profitable and self-funding asset into the group and, as such, represents a key milestone in our development as well as a stable, financeable cash-flow base from which to grow,” said Gasol chief operating officer Alan Buxton.

A draft of the updated integrated resource plan (IRP) 2010-2030 has been released by South Africa’s Department of Energy (DoE) for public comment. The document revises downwards the 2030 electricity demand forecast from 454TWh in the 2010 IRP to 345-416TWh, with significant implications for nuclear power strategy. This means that peak generation will be 61,200MW rather than 67,800MW, at the upper end of the demand forecast. The reduced demand forecast means that a decision on nuclear power can be delayed until the costs and alternatives are better understood.

Energy investor American Capital Energy & Infrastructure (ACEI) has announced it will invest $130m in Azura Power Holdings Ltd, which is developing the 450MW Azura-Edo open-cycle gas turbine power plant near Benin City in Edo State. The product of an April fundraising, the capital will be used to develop the first and second stages of the project. Azura-Edo is the flagship project in the Nigerian government’s power sector reform programme, which aims to end years of power shortages through the privatisation of state-owned power companies, ultimately aiming to boost generation capacity to 20,000MW, a target which would require capital injection of $3.5bn per year.

BG Group has announced an increase in total recoverable resources for the Mzia discovery and across blocks 1, 3 and 4 offshore southern Tanzania, marking the conclusion of a drilling and testing campaign that confirmed the Mzia field as a second giant gas discovery after Jodari, with 4.7tcf of total gross recoverable resources. Total gross recoverable resources across BG’s blocks 1, 3 and 4 are now estimated to be around 15tcf, with further exploration upside, while Statoil estimates 17-20tcf of gas in place in Block 2.

After more than two years of arbitration, the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce has upheld RSM Production Corporation’s claim that it was unjustly divested of its 38% stake in the Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG)-operated Logbaba gas field onshore Cameroon in July 2011 for failure to pay its share of operating costs. However, while affirming RSM’s interest in the concession, the court ordered the company to “promptly” pay its arrears or risk default. In June 2011, London-based VOG said RSM, owned by Denver oilman Jack Grynberg, had failed to comply with a cash call served on 15 June, giving it 15 days to pay the outstanding balance.

The government has promised to pay $1.5bn of the $6bn it says it owes oil firms in an effort to revive investor confidence and boost investment in the energy sector. “There is approval to pay $1.5bn,” interim prime minister Hazem El-Beblawi told a business conference in Cairo on 4 December aimed at attracting investment from Gulf states. While oil companies remain undeterred by Egypt’s political upheavals, stressing that both onshore and offshore operations are unaffected, they are suffering a growing financial burden from unpaid arrears owed to them by Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiaries.

London-based Rialto Energy has rounded off its restructuring with a new name – Azonto Petroleum, named after a Ghanaian dance. This year, the company has completely replaced its executive team, brought in Vitol as a partner, and renegotiated its licence for Côte d’Ivoire block CI-202 to give it more time to complete its work programme after it was obliged to cancel a rig contract earlier this year due to lack of funds. Presenting the new-look company at Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Independents’ Forum in Cape Town on 26 November.

The Orca and Tweneboa results will be highly significant for Ivorian Lebanese architect Pierre Fakhoury, who has just acquired 3D seismic on his highly prospective deepwater Block CI-100, which lies immediately south of CI-401 adjacent to Côte d’Ivoire’s border with Ghana. He will need a farm-in partner to finance a well but is dragging his feet, reluctant to surrender his independence. Fakhoury designed the huge basilica in the political capital of Yamoussoukro for Côte d’Ivoire’s late president Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and was more recently awarded a series of infrastructure contracts for the expansion of Abidjan port and for new government buildings in Yamoussoukro.

Key Petroleum has added to its Tanzania acreage with a production-sharing agreement for the Songo Songo West area. The block, which Key will operate in a joint venture with the UK’s Aminex, lies adjacent to the producing gas field at Songo Songo Island and to the west of the recently discovered gas bearing structure at the Kiliwani North-1 well on the Nyuni block where Key holds a 20% stake. Testing of the well has just got under way.