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The Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) in late May said that several government officials had refused to co-operate with its recent phase of the Assets Declaration Verification Exercise. LACC chairwoman Frances Johnson-Allison told a 21 May news conference on the release of its report into the first phase of the exercise that 18 government officials had failed to co-operate, despite receiving “multiple notices” from the commission.

Switzerland’s Federal Council on 22 May opened a consultation procedure (due to end 12 September 2013) on the preliminary draft of the Federal Act on the Freezing and Restitution of Assets of Politically Exposed Persons obtained by Unlawful Means. The new law would allow Switzerland to freeze the assets of politically exposed persons (PEPs) and would set up a framework to confiscate and return assets to the countries from which they were taken.

Canada’s troubled SNC-Lavalin has been hit with a Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgrade as the ratings agency warned of the risk of weaker profit in the wake of corruption scandals surrounding the firm’s operations in Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Bangladesh. S&P cut its ratings from BBB+ to BBB with negative outlook.

Revised May 2013, this map provides an overview of oil and gas exploration and production in Tanzania. Open and licensed acreage is shown, with block operators and the location of gas fields and discoveries marked. Details include associated downstream infrastructure including pipelines, tanker terminals, gas processing facilities and the proposed location of an LNG liquefaction plant and export terminal.

Revised May 2013, this map provides an overview of electricity sector infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Planned and exisiting generation sites are marked (including hydropower, solar, thermal and waste-to-power/biomass) alongside transmission lines. Inset maps show the Inga project site, Ruzizi projects, and planned and exisiting international transmission connections from Inga.

Revised May 2013, this map provides an overview of oil and gas exploration and production in Mozambique. Licensed acreage is shown, with block operators and the location of gas fields and discoveries marked. Details include associated downstream infrastructure including pipelines, tanker terminals, the site of a planned refinery and the proposed location of an LNG liquefaction plant and export terminal.

The World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation has announced an agreement with Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank (OeEB), the Austrian development bank, to increase sustainable energy investment in sub-Saharan Africa, starting with Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. OeEB agreed to contribute €2m ($2.6m) to support project development, capacity building and assistance to financial institutions under the Africa Sustainable Energy Facility, a joint IFC and European Investment Bank (EIB) programme to increase investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Both institutions are contributing equally to the €60m financing facility, while OeEB, alongside EIB, is providing additional funds for a support unit that will identify and facilitate investments.

More gas should become available to supply projects in Gabon from efforts to end flaring, although a significant proportion of this feedstock may be committed to projects already planned by international oil companies (IOCs) – including Total’s new 15MW power plant in Port-Gentil, Perenco’s supply of the plant being built by Israel’s Telemenia and Royal Dutch Shell’s experiments with smaller scale liquefaction (see Gabon fertiliser scheme delayed as gas supply proves elusive).

President Ali Bongo Ondimba has been energetically promoting his country’s investment profile across the world, and Gabon in the 1990s took a continental lead in promoting the concessioning of public services, but the going can be tough for some investors and concession contracts in particular are coming under pressure. According to a Gabon analyst, “utility companies are operating in a particularly fraught environment”.

Eni will import less gas from Algeria this year and next as part of an ongoing renegotiation of its long-term agreement with Sonatrach. On 28 May, Eni said the two companies “had agreed on a package solution for 2013 and 2014 within the framework of their commercial discussions under the existing gas contract” and that they would “reduce certain quantities of the contractual gas volumes delivered into Italy”. According to Eni’s 2012 annual report, the company imported 14.45bcm of gas from Algeria in 2012 via pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments.

Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) has invested in Total E&P Congo through a 15% share capital increase that will help fund the $10bn Moho Nord project. Traditionally downstream focused, QPI’s only other sub-Saharan African upstream involvement is a 20% stake in Total’s Ta7 and Ta8 blocks in Mauritania, acquired in 2007. In recent years, the company has sought to expand, often via reciprocal deals, farming into the overseas fields of international oil companies which operate in Qatar.

Davis Chirchir, a computer scientist and staunch ally of deputy president William Ruto, has been confirmed as minister for energy and petroleum, replacing Meru County senator Kiraitu Murungi. Chirchir has no experience in the energy sector. He co-ordinated the unbundling of state-owned Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation in 1999, from which Telekom Kenya was formed, and managed the establishment of mobile service provider Safaricom.

Work on one of Morocco’s five giant solar power complexes got under way on 10 May as Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power launched construction of the 160MW first phase of a possible 500MW complex in Ouarzazate. The Noor 1 concentrated solar power (CSP) facility is being developed as the first project for the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen) and reaffirms the dominance of Gulf-owned companies in North Africa. Noor 1 will incorporate three hours of thermal storage and will be the world’s largest parabolic trough CSP power plant, according to Acwa. Prequalification for the 300MW second phase, divided into a 100MW CSP tower and 200MW parabolic trough project, began in January.



Faced with fuel security issues following the independence of South Sudan, Sudan has started using 10% ethanol mixed into petrol and plans to expand production for export. “Ethanol has been formally recognised as a fuel in Sudan,” Kenana Sugar Company managing director Mohamed El Mardi El Tegani told the Brazil-Arab News Agency during a conference on food security in the Arab world on 20 May in Khartoum. 



On 9 May, 19 projects selected in the second round of the renewable energy independent power producers procurement (REIPPP2) programme signed agreements with the government. The projects represent 1,044MW of new capacity and an investment of R28bn ($3bn), according to energy minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters. The round saw 562.4MW allocated to wind projects, 417.1MW to solar photovoltaic (PV), 50MW to the Bokpoort concentrated solar power project and 14.3MW to small hydropower projects. The REIPPP2 contract signing was delayed by nearly six weeks while the Department of Energy (DoE) wrestled with requirements that the budget for each round should be formally approved by the Treasury. This was an improvement on the first round, where the same issue caused a four-and-a-half-month delay.