Search results

Malawi has become the latest country to cut off diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of the People’s Republic of China

Kenya Power & Lighting Company is seeking expressions of interests from consultants for a feasibility study on the manufacture and assembly of distribution transformers in Kenya.

Wentworth Resources is to take over as operator of the Rovuma Onshore concession and carry out appraisal of the Tembo-1 gas discovery. The company said it had applied to the Ministry of Energy and Minerals for approval of a proposed appraisal programme for Tembo-1, and to increase its holding in Rovuma Onshore from 11.59% to 85%.Current operator Anadarko, Maurel & Prom and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production have all notified the National Petroleum Institute (INP) of the relinquishment of their interests in the block with effect from 31 August 2015.

Chevron Global Energy has sold its 25% non-operated interest in the Doba Basin to the government for $1.3bn. The sale closed on 13 June. The transaction includes the sale of Chevron’s interests in seven fields in the Doba Basin, which in 2013 had average crude oil production of 18,000 b/d net to Chevron. The sale also includes a 21% non-operated interest in the export pipeline system that transports crude to Cameroon’s Kribi port, and associated marine facilities.

Two very different communities are coming closer together to see if they can enact radical change in regions of sub-Saharan Africa that have little realistic chance of being connected to secure electricity grids. Already on the ground are the off-grid pioneers – often supported by individual donors and NGOs, philanthropic and other impact investors, such as the Shell Foundation – who have usually focused on small-scale projects.

The international upstream arm of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC) has a mandate to increase its reserves and production mainly through acquisitions across Africa and elsewhere

Connecting the 47 first and second round Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPP) projects to the grid over a two- or three-year period is a daunting prospect for South African utility Eskom, in a country where wind and solar power generation is currently negligible.

Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (Ketraco) on 10 March signed two contracts with a combined value of Ksh8.14bn ($89m) for the 400kV Olkaria-Lessos-Kisumu transmission line. The line will evacuate power from the geothermal complex at Olkaria to western Kenya and serve as the backbone for regional interconnections with Uganda and Ethiopia, facilitating the anticipated export of 400MW to Kenya and 200MW to Rwanda from Ethiopia in 2017.

Energie du Mali (EDM) invites expressions of interest by 5 May from consultants to prepare a medium-to-long-term electricity grid masterplan for Bamako and its environs. The study is part of a wider plan by the utility to enhance the city’s electricity supply, and will examine the technical and economic feasibility of transmission and distribution options to ensure reliable and efficient electricity supply through to 2040, according to a procurement notice issued on 27 March.

Gabon has written to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon rejecting part of Angola’s December 2013 submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). The northern maritime limit separating Angola’s territorial waters to the north of Cabinda from Republic of Congo’s waters, instead of running straight from the coastline, turns off abruptly to the north and intersects first Congo’s continental shelf area, then Gabon’s.

Following the government’s facilitation of a more investor-friendly regime to encourage generation and transmission schemes, more independent power projects (IPPs) are expected to emerge in Zambia, several of them supplying the fast-growing mining sector. According to Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) director for strategy and regulation Silvester Hibajene, Zambia will need 1,870MW more generation capacity in the next five years, at an estimated $4bn cost. 



Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) has signed a E15.8m ($20.68m) contract with France’s Siemens Transmission & Distribution SAS for the engineering, procurement and construction of a substation at Suswa, near Narok

The Polisario Front’s government-in-exile, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), has protested to Norway’s Fugro-Geoteam and the US’ Kosmos Energy over their contract to acquire seismic offshore the disputed Western Sahara (AE 151/16).

Advances in plans to boost output from the country’s two largest oil and gas fields, together with indications of important changes to exploration licensing, suggest that Algeria may finally be shifting to a more realistic approach to oil and gas sector development. But the direction of policy remains difficult to read, not least because the ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has not been seen in public for two years, meaning there is great doubt about the authority behind strategic decision-making over national resources.

Eve Howell’s Tangiers Petroleum has agreed a takeover of Jacka Resources, giving it new assets in Tunisia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Somaliland and Australia. Tangiers is offering 0.468 Tangiers shares for every Jacka share held, in an off-market deal valuing Jacka at $37m. The combined company will have interests in two high impact wells planned for 2014: the TAO- 1 exploration well in the Tarfaya block in Morocco, operated by Galp Energia, and the Hammamet West-3 sidetrack on the Bargou permit in Tunisia.