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State utility Sonelgaz has faced capacity and financial pressures, but is generally seen to have performed to an acceptable level (by current Algerian standards) under Noureddine Bouterfa’s leadership, since January 2004. Algiers analysts noted that power cuts were no longer endemic on the new minister’s watch.Announcing Sonelgaz’s 2015 results on 5 June, Bouterfa pointed to investments worth AD577bn ($5.3bn) in 2015, when 1,285.6MW of new generation capacity was brought online.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s 11 June government reshuffle appointed Algeria’s fifth energy minister in six years, highlighting instability at the top of a vital but often poorly performing industry. By promoting Noureddine Bouterfa, president director-general (PDG) of state utility Sonelgaz since 2004, the presidency has placed one of the industry’s most seasoned campaigners in the hot seat.

Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco) has sparked a storm of protest after the leaking of a letter to Symbion Power saying it was “ceasing negotiations” over a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the 120MW Ubungo plant, despite having signed the document last December. Symbion said in a 30 May statement that Ubongo, where US President Barack Obama outlined his Power Africa initiative in July 2013, was operating under a PPA signed on 10 December by Tanesco managing director Felchesmi Mramba. “There is no question whatsoever that the PPA is a valid and binding document,” the company said.

Democratic Republic of Congo catches the imagination of those who see its potential to drive Africa’s future through its mineral wealth, resourceful population and the Inga Falls hydroelectric resource. But grandiose visions tend to founder on rocky realities in this vast, extravagantly diverse country, where power politics and the global commodities price crash – which in early May forced the government to cut 2016 spending by some 22% – have deeply unsettled much of what remains of international business. In May, major investor Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Cobalt announced it was selling up.

President José Eduardo dos Santos on 2 June appointed a new board of directors for state oil company Sonangol. The new team will be headed by his daughter Isabel, a businesswoman who led the commission that formulated proposals for Sonangol’s restructuring. The new board will implement the reforms recommended by the commission, outlined in two presidential decrees on 26 May.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has begun investigations into Rolls-Royce’s operations in Nigeria, following accusations that the London Stock Exchange-listed engineering group filtered payments through intermediaries such as Unaoil to win deals in Indonesia, China, India and Brazil. As with previous investigations, the deals under scrutiny were transacted by Rolls-Royce’s previous management, headed by Sir John Rose. The Times newspaper reported on 20 May that the Nigerian deals involved Rolls-Royce’s alleged use of an intermediary company, PSL Engineering and Control, to influence the sale of gas turbines.

Senior officials and some notable international investors are optimistic that Egypt’s upstream sector is back on track, but this does not mean that some casualties have not been left by the wayside. The announcement of a new licensing round and the prospect of others later this year is the latest indication of the opportunities now on offer. Field developments are under way on and offshore, but Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) has not paid back arrears owed to international oil companies (IOCs) as quickly as it said it would, and a number of IOCs have suffered because of this.

Forces in Cyrenaica opposed to the United Nations-imposed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli have provoked a definitive challenge to its authority by blockading oil exports from the only major terminal still working in Libya. The damaging financial consequences of this action will be felt across the whole country, and the total shutdown of production – possibly within days – will also cause immense technical problems. But for those behind the action, such concerns may now be secondary as they attempt to shift the balance of the conflict in favour of the east, while also preparing for a likely military confrontation in the central zone presently dominated by Islamic State (IS).

Western governments are determined to interdict the Indian-flagged tanker containing a cargo of Libya crude sold to an Emirati buyer by the Cyrenaica-based parallel management of National Oil Corporation (NOC). On 27 April, the vessel was located in waters south-east of Malta, having been turned back by the authorities in Valletta the previous day. Failure to prevent it from unloading the cargo and completing the transaction in defiance of a United Nations Security Council resolution banning unauthorised crude exports would destroy the credibility of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

Tribal rights NGO Survival International has lodged a complaint with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) against Italian company Salini Impregilo, which is building the 1,870MW Gilgel Gibe III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia. The complaint was filed under the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, to which Salini is a signatory.

The Milan Public Prosecutor’s office has placed Royal Dutch Shell under formal investigation for international corruption offences relating to its purchase of OPL 245 in Nigeria. Shell’s headquarters in The Hague were searched on 17 February by Italian and Dutch financial police. The investigation relates to the sale in 2011 to Shell and Eni of the block, which contains the Etan and Zabazaba fields. The companies paid $1.1bn, plus a signature bonus of $200m, to the Nigerian government, which in a back-to-back deal negotiated by the attorney general then transferred $1.1bn to Malabu Oil & Gas, a company owned by former oil minister Dan Etete, to which he had granted rights to the acreage in 1998.

South Africa’s controversial Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill is due to be returned to the minerals portfolio committee in early May, amid hopes that long-running uncertainty about the legal framework for exploration and production might finally be resolved. Concerns have focused on plans to transfer authority over the processing and administration of exploration and production rights from the regulatory Petroleum Agency SA to the Department of Mineral Resources’ regional managers, as well as a vague provision giving the state a 20% free carried interest in all new exploration and production rights.

A variety of reasons were given for the complete loss of power to the grid of Africa’s biggest economy on 31 March. The most immediate cause appears to have been the tripping of the 330kV transmission lines from Osogbo to Ihovbor and Ihovbor to Benin, resulting in the loss of 201MW from the Ihovbor gas power plant in Delta State. Without adequate reserves to support the system, the resulting drop in frequency caused a complete collapse. Generation had already fallen precipitously from a record high of 5,074MW on 2 February in the wake of a sophisticated underwater attack on the pipeline feeding the Forcados export terminal operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited.

The management of National Oil Corporation (NOC) based in the eastern Libyan town of Al-Bayda has suspended its attempts to sell oil independently from the established NOC management in Tripoli since the United Nations (UN)-backed Presidency Council led by Faiz Serraj moved to the capital. But the legitimacy of what the UN and its backers say is now the recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) is far from established. The dominant power brokers in Cyrenaica are still negotiating the terms of their endorsement of the new administration. Without their support it will be constitutionally weak, and failure to agree will start a new conflict over control of Sirte Basin oil infrastructure.

The US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has halted preparations for a second compact, planned to make $472.8m available for the power sector, citing concerns about elections in Zanzibar and about the country’s Cybercrimes Act.The government declared the October elections in the semi-autonomous archipelago invalid, saying there had been irregularities in the voting process.