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Ethiopia has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on infrastructure projects and business premises as part of a six-month state of emergency imposed on 8 October. According to a government decree dated 15 October, only authorised employees of factories and business entities are allowed to access them between 6pm and 6am, and security officials have been mandated to take action on anyone violating the curfew. Diplomats may not travel beyond a 40km radius of Addis Ababa without official permission “for their own safety”, and demonstrations and political gatherings are banned, as are sharing information via social media and watching diaspora TV channels ESAT and OMN “or other similar terrorist-linked media”.

Madagascar Oil’s new owners hope their Tsimiroro field development, whose first phase is at the front-end engineering and design stage, will be largely immune to the Covid-19 pandemic and parallel slump in global oil prices. Speaking to African Energy as part of the company’s campaign to find development partners, chairman Al Njoo said Madagascar Oil was talking to a number of Chinese companies, including Hong Kong-based bunker service provider Chimbusco Pan Nation Petro-Chemical Company, a joint venture between Petro-China and Shanghai-based Cosco Shipping. It is also in discussions with a number of Chinese banks.

Bids were due by 15 May for a European Development Fund-financed programme to improve the corporate governance of power utility Zesco. Zesco has obtained European Investment Bank funding for two projects – upgrading the existing 220kV Kafue-Muzuma-Livingstone transmission line to 330 kV, and the Itezhi Tezhi hydro project and related transmission infrastructure. According to the tender notice: “Zesco has expressed its desire and commitment to strengthen good corporate governance and compliance procedures within the company.” The winning consultant will help the utility develop and implement a corporate governance framework.

Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable has published notice of prequalification for the 350MW Abdelmoumen pumped storage project in Taroudant Province. The turnkey contract will include implementation studies, civil works, materials and equipment supply, installation, testing and commissioning of the power plant.

Biokala, a subsidiary of Cote d’Ivoire’s leading agribusiness Sifca, in partnership with France’s EDF, invites expressions of interest by 8 March for the turnkey construction of a 46MW biomass-fired power plant at Ayebo.

Plus Markets Group has announced plans to close after failing to attract a buyer for its exchange for small companies.

Repsol is offering companies the opportunity to earn up to a 30% participating interest in its Taoudeni Basin Block Ta10. Repsol plans to drill on the block in mid-2013, with a well to be drilled back-to-back with Total.

The availability of gas for domestic sectors – particularly power – is a major plank of the government’s reform programme (AE127/17).

Singapore-based engineering, management and technical services company Aurecon has been appointed to provide engineering services for three third-round renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme projects. The company will undertake detailed design services for the substations, grid connections and overhead lines for the 75MW Sonnedix and Prieska solar photovoltaic power plants in the Northern Cape. The contracts were awarded by the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors for the project, SunPower, which is 66% owned by Total, and Germany’s Juwi. Sunpower, which has a manufacturing facility in Cape Town, is supplying solar modules for the projects, and the inverters will be supplied by Germany’s SMA Solar.

Globeleq on 21 September announced the appointment of former Nedbank and Eskom chairman Reuel Khoza to head the board. Four new directors have been named: Eddy Njoroge, the former chief executive of Kenya Electricity Generating Company and current chairman of Telkom Kenya, former African Export-Import Bank head Jean-Louis Ekra, former Norwegian petroleum and energy minister Eivind Reiten, and Edward Hall, who most recently was executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Atlantic Power Corporation. Globeleq had already named Henry Aszklar to replace Mikael Karlsson as chief executive.

Africa-focused fuel retailer Vivo Energy on 10 April announced plans for an initial public offering (IPO) in London and Johannesburg. Vivo Energy, which has Shell-branded retail operations in 15 countries across Africa, is owned 55% by Vitol and 44% by Helios Investment Partners. Management owns the remaining 1%. Under the IPO plans at least 25% of the company will be floated in May, in what the Financial Times described as the first significant listing of an African-based business since 2014, when Nigeria’s Seplat raised $500m in an IPO in London and Lagos.

Chevron’s proposed acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum will have little immediate impact on development plans for Mozambique Area 1, where a final investment decision is now expected in early May. The deal is mainly focused on Anadarko’s position in US shale and the Gulf of Mexico but will also expand and diversify Chevron’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) business and create a fourth supermajor alongside ExxonMobil, BP and Shell.

Tullow Oil has farmed down most of its stake in the Uganda oil development to its partner Total, in a $900m deal that it says will significantly reduce development costs and give the project new impetus following a series of delays. “Farming down to Total was the ideal choice. They are a fantastic operator, and they will drive this project forward very, very quickly,” Tullow chief executive Aidan Heavey told a 11 January conference call to discuss the sale. Tullow has agreed to transfer 21.57% of its 33.33% in exploration areas 1, 1A, 2 and 3A to Total for $900m.

The emergence of the Benghazi-based Cyrenaica National Council (CNC), and its call in early March for a return to Libya’s 1951-63 federal constitution, were not – as National Transitional Council (NTC) leader Mustafa Abdeljalil’s angry rejection implied – an indication of the imminent break-up of the country

Media reports in October that the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) had signed an agreement to finance a 50MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Sierra Leone are inaccurate, African Energy understands. IFC spokeswoman Laura MacInnis told African Energy that “at this time, IFC is only engaged in an assessment to understand the viability of solar PV as an energy option for the country”.