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Following the recent bribery conviction against Calgary-based minnow Griffiths Energy International (AE 247/19), amendments to the country’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA) were tabled as a government bill (Bill S-14) on 5 February.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa has approved a $1m grant to finalise pre-investment activities for a hybrid renewable energy project in Nosy Be Island. The grant will help to finance feasibility studies for a combination of hydro, wind and solar technologies, technical assistance to the national power utility, and the transactions advisory for a public-private partnership.

Revised February 2013, this map provides a regional overview of electricity infrastructure across Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. Planned and existing generation and transmission projects are clearly marked. The map illustrates Ethiopia's hydroelectricity and geothermal power potential. Transmission projects are shown from 500kV down to a number of smaller 66 and 33kV lines. Detail includes major cross-border transmission links.

Riots in southern Tanzania in late January highlighted the gap between expectation and reality for governments, companies and local communities grappling with the complexities of oil and gas development, while differences between Uganda and IOCs are delaying a significant development, writes Thalia Griffiths in Arusha

The start-up of the Menzel Ledjmet East (MLE) gas field discussed by Eni chief executive Paolo Scaroni, the then energy and mines minister Chakib Khelil and the minister’s controversial personal secretary Farid Bédjaoui ought to be a major cause for celebration in Eni’s long history of Algerian partnership.

The London and Johannesburg offices of Norton Rose are advising Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) as sponsor of the Kariba South power station extension project.

The AfDB’s geothermal programme, initiated in the mid-2000s, is coming to fruition with the interest shown by private sector developers in the 400MW Menengai geothermal complex in Kenya, and the bank now intends to apply its new approach across the region, writes Dan Marks

National Oil Corporation of Kenya (Nock) has issued a tender for a 2D seismic survey for Block 14T in the Magadi Basin, south-west of Nairobi. The survey will cover about 400km around Lake Magadi in the south of the block, close to the border with Tanzania. Bids are due by 11 March. The block is held 100% by Nock, which is hoping to attract a farm-in partner.

Tanzania’s neighbour Burundi has licensed four blocks on Lake Tanganyika. Block A is held by Nigeria’s A-Z Petroleum Products, which also has Block L1A in Kenya. A-Z is part of the Chicason Group, owned by Chief Alexander Chika Okafor.

As well as monetising the gas field offshore Mtwara, the controversial new Mnazi Bay-Dar es Salaam gas pipeline will enable smaller discoveries like Aminex’s Kiliwani North field and Maurel & Prom’s Mkuranga field to be brought on stream and used for domestic power generation, replacing costly imported fuel.

The images of grief and riot that followed the assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaïd on 6 February highlight the extent to which the first, and so far most successful, of the Arab Spring revolutions has been put in jeopardy by ideological and factional divisions among the country’s new leaders. The killing was quickly interpreted as marking a violent new phase in a region-wide struggle between democratic modernisers – who include secular politicians like Belaïd and President Moncef Marzouki, but also mainstream figures in the Islamist Ennahda party such as prime minister Hamadi Jebali – and ultra-radical Salafists.

Kosmos Energy has revealed that plateau production from the Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN) development on the Tullow Oil-operated Deepwater Tano Block will be smaller than expected at 80,000 b/d.

As Chevron steps up the pace of exploration along the West African coast, it has announced a final investment decision on the Mafumeira Sul project offshore Cabinda.

Italy’s Eni has announced a new oil discovery from the Rosa North 1X well in the Meleiha concession in the Western Desert. The company said the well formed part of a strategy to refocus exploration activities in Egypt by targeting deeper oil plays in the desert.

GDF Suez, in partnership with Morocco’s Nareva Holding, has won a contract to build the 300MW Tarfaya wind farm. The Tarfaya farm will be developed on a build, own, operate, transfer basis and supply electricity to state utility Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable under a 20-year power purchase agreement.