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With its redomiciling from Australia to Norway completed at end-February, PetroNor is now looking to increase production from its African assets. However, the investigation into former chief executive Knut Søvold continues, following his arrest in December over projects in Africa.

Washington-based social impact project developer C-Quest Capital (CQC) has secured significant new finance for its deployment of clean cooking stoves in sub-Saharan Africa, in the latest sign of growing interest in the sector.

Since the putsch that removed the now-exiled President Alpha Condé in September, ‘Interim President’ Colonel Mamady Doumbouya has been determined to stamp his mark on Guinea. His policies may be less confrontational than those of his friend Colonel Assimi Goïta in Mali, who replaced French forces with Russian Wagner Group paramilitaries, but Doumbouya has nevertheless asserted control over his country’s political and business life.

The parastatal Central Electricity Board (CEB) issued two tenders on 18 March, requesting bidders for a total 140MW of solar PV and storage and 40MW of small renewable energy (RE) hybrid projects. The tenders come less than a month after CEB renewable energy and strategic projects manager Chavan Dabeedin was arrested on a charge of bribery of a public official in relation to the ‘Saint Louisgate’ scandal.

There have been further developments in the government’s efforts to claw back advantageous conditions offered to Chinese investors under the $6bn infrastructure-for-minerals deal agreed with Beijing by ex-president Joseph Kabila Kabange.

Former Gabon Oil Company (GOC) director-general Christian Patrichi Tanasa Mbadinga, appeared before the Cour Criminelle Spéciale (CCS) in Libreville on 21 March, charged with misappropriating FCFA85bn ($143m) from the state oil company.

Financial statements from Canadian-based First Quantum Minerals (FQM) show that Zambia’s largest miner was issued an arbitration award for its Kansanshi mine subsidiary in a case against national power utility Zesco.

The energy-focused group belonging to Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch remains a major player in petroleum products trading and distribution and potentially upstream gas developments during a period when rising prices are adding to popular pressures on the Moroccan government to act and the PM has come under unexpectedly severe personal attack, writes a Special Correspondent, with Jon Marks.

The Tshisekedi government’s announcement that Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler’s Ventora Development would return control of its mining and oil assets to Democratic Republic of Congo puts assets back into play including the Albertine Graben blocks 1 and 2, managed by Gertler’s company Oil of DRCongo. But there are potential further complications from continued US sanctions against Gertler and over exactly what’s in the deal, writes François Misser.

An arbitration ruling means National Oil Corporation (NOC) can press ahead with buying out UAE-based Trasta Energy’s 50% stake in the Libyan Emirati Oil Refining Company (Lerco) and regaining full control of the Ras Lanuf oil refinery. The plant could resume operations after a decade of inaction, although at least one major court battle still lies ahead, writes John Hamilton.

Democratic Republic of Congo has the resources – if not yet the right governance framework – to help meet rising global demand for rare earth minerals. China has so far made much of the running with such resources, prompting economic and strategic concern in the US and Europe where DRC’s potential has not gone unnoticed, writes François Misser.

The proliferation of coups d’état across West Africa and the wider region over the past 18 months points to the return of chronic instability to one of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable (not least to climate change) regions. Many parts of the post-colonial continent, and especially its emerging West African nations, were defined by the speedy demise of civilian government as military rulers took over in the 1960s.

Mozambique’s hopes for attracting interest to its sixth licensing round need to be set against the increasingly pressing environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals set by international oil companies (IOCs).

The Maputo government is trying to attract more majors to its offshore acreage, just as industry giants TotalEnergies and Eni ready themselves for further development of their rival liquified natural gas projects in the politically unstable north, writes James Gavin

The World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes set another new record for the size of its caseload in 2021, with power and energy cases the most significant area of work and disputes involving African countries also prominent.