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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.

Ethiopia’s 6,000MW Grand Renaissance dam on the Blue Nile River is the centrepiece of the country’s five-year Growth and Transformation Programme, which aims to turn the country into a middle-income nation by 2015, expanding its electricity coverage to 75% of the population and supplying the region with power. The dam’s commissioning was originally scheduled to begin during late 2013, but disputes over the potential impact on Ethiopia’s downstream neighbours, Sudan and Egypt, have hampered progress. In 2010, Ethiopia signed an agreement with several other countries in the region, except for Sudan and Egypt, asserting its right to build on the Blue Nile (AE 218/5).

The government launched an anti-corruption initiative in late April backed by the country’s inspector general, Hassan Sultan. “From the public procurement process to electoral reform and international co-operation, corruption can have a negative impact on a wide range of important functions of the state, and it is our responsibility to eradicate it wherever it is found,” he said. The launch came a few days before Sultan travelled to London for the UK-Djibouti Trade and Investment Forum.

ANGOLA: ROC Cabinda stake sale; ANGOLA: New find for Total; ANGOLA: Pazflor FPSO in place

Roc Oil has suffered another disappointment in its seven-well programme on the Cabinda South block (AE 127/16).

Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution, which drove Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile in Saudi Arabia on 13 January, was the unexpected trigger that has made Arab populations wake up after decades of submission to personalised, autocratic regimes. But it is events in Egypt that will drive how the ‘Arab street’ and those who seek

Addax and Oryx Group subsidiary Addax Bioenergy SA has broken ground for the construction of an ethanol refinery and biomass-fuelled power plant, due to become operational in 2013, at its sugarcane plantation development near Makeni in central Sierra Leone

The High Court has dismissed with costs a case brought by Arandis Energy against Xaris Energy over a controversial tender for a 250MW gas power project. Acting judge Collins Parker ruled that there had been an unreasonable delay in making the application, which was submitted 16 months after NamPower selected Xaris as preferred bidder. Arandis had argued that the delay was justified because mines and energy minister Obeth Kandjoze had begun an investigation into the tendering process in April 2015 and the company was awaiting the result. But Parker ruled that accepting this argument “would be setting a very dangerous precedent”.

One of the companies listed in President Barack Obama’s highly publicised Power Africa initiative, Symbion Power, is adding to its already substantial position in Tanzania (AE 257/1) by promoting a geothermal project with Nevada-based, Israeli-owned Ormat Technologies. Symbion chief executive Paul Hinks told African Energy the partners would look to the Power Africa initiative for backing.

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.

The Nepad Agency, the planning and coordinating body of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, announced on 3 December that the Dakar Financing Summit on Africa’s Infrastructure, which was to take place in Senegal on 13-14 December, had been “postponed to a later date”. This was “due to the many engagements of heads of state at this period of the year”. The conference was expected to gather African leaders and leading donors to add to the momentum being built behind the African Union/African Development Bank initiative and especially the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), intended to develop some of the continent’s biggest energy, transport, information and communication technologies, and trans- boundary water resources projects.

Cooper Energy Tunisia Bargou has given AGR a well-management contract for planning, execution and post-drilling activities for the planned Hammamet West-3 well on the Bargou permit in the Gulf of Hammamet in Q4 this year

Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited is seeking bids by 23 January for the design, supply and installation of the Kole-Gulu-Nebbi-Arua 132kV transmission line, related substations and the Kole switching station in north-west Uganda. The project is being funded from the World Bank’s Grid Expansion and Reinforcement Project. The tender is divided into three lots, and bidders may bid for one or several contracts. Work is expected to take 24 months.