Search results

Eskom has given ABB a contract to construct two solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants. The pilot plants, each of one hectare, will be located on greenfield sites adjacent to the coal-fired power stations at

Some of the names already involved in the Sierra Leone natural resources sector are controversial. Frank Timis’ London AIM-listed African Minerals Ltd (AML) is developing the Tonkolili iron ore project, while his National Stock Exchange of Australia-listed African Petroleum Corporation has offshore exploration block SL-03.

The New York-based Revenue Watch Institute has given a positive assessment of Ghana’s Stabilisation Fund and Heritage Fund, saying they met 13 of 16 good governance fundamentals. The two funds, established under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act of March 2011, were described as featuring” clear deposit, withdrawal and investment rules, effective oversight, and other essential attributes of good governance”. The government published a reconciliation report in March this year detailing the sums passing through the Petroleum Holding Fund, from where oil money is allocated to Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, the annual budget, and the two petroleum funds.

Gabon’s Direction Générale des Hydrocarbures (DGH) has insisted “everything is back to normal” following a coup attempt on 7 January. DGH deputy general manager Edgard Mbina-Kombila told a roadshow event in London on 17 January that the closing date for the country’s 12th licensing round had been put back to 30 September following industry feedback suggesting the previous closing date of 22 April was too soon. But the revised petroleum code governing the bid round has not yet been signed into law and bid evaluation criteria are still being worked out.

The Energy Regulation Board (ERB) has raised power tariffs for mining companies by 28.8% from 2 April after almost three years of dispute involving state power utility Zesco and mining companies. Most mining companies in Zambia buy electricity via the private Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC). Zesco was pushing to increase power tariffs for mines to $0.078/kWh from $0.0531/kWh but the ERB only allowed a rise to $0.068/kWh. The ERB has raised mining tariffs twice since 2007 – a period in which non-mining tariffs increased by a cumulative 96% on average.

There is a steady flow of positive news coming from Eskom, as the South African power giant seeks to restore its reputation after several very bad months.

Guinea has reached the completion point for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, paving the way for $2.1bn of debt relief.

Cairn Energy is preparing to spud a well on the Juby Maritime III Block following a dry well on the adjacent Foum Draa Block. The well will drill down some 1,000 metres below the 1969 Cap Juby heavy oil discovery in the Upper Jurassic to target a Middle Jurassic carbonate prospect. Cairn said operations would begin once the FD-1 exploration well had been plugged and abandoned. The Cajun Express semisubmersible drillship spudded the FD-1 well in late October in 1,500 metres of water, targeting a Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous deep-water turbidite slope fan and channel complex.

While much of the world was distracted by Donald Trump’s election in the US, Rio Tinto announced on 9 November that it had suspended energy and minerals head Alan Davies and accepted the resignation of legal and regulatory affairs executive Debra Valentine after discovering $10.5m in payments to a French adviser to Guinean President Alpha Condé.Rio said it had launched an investigation and alerted regulators after becoming aware on 29 August of emails from 2011 that referred to contractual payments to an unidentified consultant relating to its Simandou iron ore project.

Anti-corruption campaigners including the London-based NGO Corruption Watch and Angola’s Associação Mãos Livres, have called on the Swiss government to reopen an investigation into a 1990s debt repayment deal between Angola and Russia. Corruption Watch, run by the former African National Congress MP Andrew Feinstein, released a 166-page report, ‘Deception in High Places: The Corrupt Angola-Russia Debt Deal’, on 16 April detailing how more than $700m ended up in private hands following a mid-1990s restructuring of Angolan debt to Russia. The report was presented in the European Parliament on 23 April as an example of the plundering that can take place in developing nations with the complicity of European banks and tax havens.

Algeria has been forced into retreat over its punitive windfall profits tax, marking another setback for the country’s five-year experiment with resource nationalism

Tullow Oil announced on 14 July that the Gardim-1 exploration well, drilled on the eastern flank of the Chew Bahir Basin in the South Omo licence had reached a total depth of 2,468 metres without encountering commercial oil. Tullow said the well intersected lacustrine and volcanic formations similar to those found in the Shimela-1 well on the north-western flank of the basin. Minor intervals with thermogenic gas shows were intersected just above basement. Tullow said seismic interpretation continued on separate prospects elsewhere in the licence that would be targeted by the next phase of the Ethiopia exploration campaign.

The board of the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) has approved the construction of a 50MW solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Garissa. The plant is expected to cost Ksh12.8bn ($127m), financed by the Chinese government, and will comprise 210,210 260W panels. Construction is expected to begin in July and will take one year to complete. In 2012, Chinese manufacturer JinkoSolar Holdings announced that it had signed a deal with China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic & Technical Cooperation Ltd to supply PV modules for the project.

An extensive World Bank study, Left out of the Bargain - Settlements in Foreign Bribery Cases and Implications for Asset Recovery, has found that from1999-mid 2012 395 enforcement settlements for corruption took place, raising $6.9bn. But just 3.3% ($197m) was returned to the countries where the crime took place. The report highlights the tricky issue of how international anti-corruption enforcement can best repatriate. tainted assets and proceeds to the victim countries in line with Chapter 5 of United Nations Convention against Corruption. The study also notes some cases where companies have been told to pay fines to the countries concerned but have failed to do so – for example construction firm Mabey & Johnson, which was caught paying bribes to Iraqi officials in Ghana and Jamaica.

Few countries excite such violent emotions as Sudan, where committed IOCs still see new upside in their exploration and production projects but where political violence and geopolitical shifts, including Barack Obama’s election to the White House,