Search results

The US Exim Bank has re-approved a $4.7bn loan to operator TotalEnergies for the Mozambique LNG project in Cabo Delgado. Seen as a vital step for resuming the megaproject, which has been under force majeure for four years, the decision is also likely a fillip for the neighbouring, ExxonMobil-operated Rovuma LNG play.

The new NDC administration is promising a radical shake-up of Ghanaian institutions and spending, including another stab at electricity sector privatisation – in an attempt to carry through what John Mahama promised when he was last president, a decade ago. Delivering meaningful reform will provide an even greater challenge now than it did for his last government, writes Jon Marks.

With a presidential election due in which ‘transition president’ Brigadier General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema now says he will stand, oil and gas players are keeping a close watch on political developments – not least after last year’s pre-emption of 48,000 b/d of producing assets by the state-owned GOC – but indies are nonetheless optimistic, with large new capital commitments going into new discoveries, infrastructure and major new gas plays, writes James Gavin.

The 5 March arrest of petroleum minister Puot Kang Chol, along with other senior allies of First Vice President Riek Macha, has raised tensions in Juba and provoked questions about the country’s seven-year peace settlement.

The Pastef party was handed a thumping parliamentary majority by Senegalese voters late last year, to add to its control of the presidency. Many see 2025 as the year that President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko must make good on their reforming promises, writes Wale Dione Faye in Dakar.

Despite some improvements, diplomatic relations between Niger and Benin remain fraught. Cotonou has recalled its ambassador after deeming his public apologies for last year’s Niger-Benin Export Pipeline dispute had gone too far. Meanwhile, ties between Niger and Algeria continue to warm, signalled by fresh momentum for the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline project and Algiers’ backing for a new refinery in Dosso.

A catastrophic decline in oil sale revenues transferred to the state treasury, which cannot be explained by normal market factors, threatens to undermine the already shaky foundations of Libya’s governance. African Energy’s analysis of recently released data suggests that uneconomic barter deals, smuggling, mismanagement and corruption have cost the country tens of billions of dollars in the past three years, writes John Hamilton.

The zeal with which Elon Musk and others in Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ posse have taken to dismantling the global financial and security order may prove to be a passing phase, but it is more likely to represent a lasting shift that poses some very serious questions for Africa, writes Jon Marks.

Turkey’s Karpower has started dispatching power from two of its floating powerships in Gabon. The vessels are supplying 70MW to Libreville, bringing an end to over five months of protracted loadshedding in the capital.

The entry into Goma of rebel and Rwandan forces is a catastrophe for Democratic Republic of Congo and threatens a return to wider conflict in the Great Lakes region. International efforts have so far failed to secure peace in troubled eastern Congo – which will require difficult decisions and major efforts to curb Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s ambitions, overcome DRC President Félix Tshisekedi’s failings and restore trade in the region’s critical minerals to a legal footing.

Undeterred by a dismal track record of unfulfilled investment strategies, stalled projects and the vagaries of an unstable military dictatorship, a coalition of multilateral funders continues to support national utility Sonabel’s renewable energy and electrification programmes. But the ambitious next phase will need private developers and financers as well as generous institutional backing. African Energy and African Energy Live Data have delved into the history of Burkinabe power procurement, examining the projects that have worked and those that have not, to assess whether this time it might be different, writes John Hamilton.

For Bola Tinubu, as for previous Nigerian presidents, one measure of success at overcoming the graft and mismanagement that have undermined the economy for decades will be his ability to halt systemic oil theft in the Niger Delta. Tinubu’s administration and military chiefs are setting drones and other technology to work, but whether they can overcome the usual vested interests to harness desperately needed higher revenue flows and investment remains to be seen.

Long-awaited gas and oil field developments have been gazetted, Chinese and Saudi firms have been discussing investments and officials say long-mooted upstream developments by Chevron and ExxonMobil could be signed in a matter of months.

The restart of crude deliveries via the Petrodar pipeline in January was an important moment for South Sudan’s embattled economy and a sign of improved relations between Juba and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) based in Port Sudan. However, the trade continues to be at risk from Sudan’s civil war, as are the SAF’s hopes of attracting Russian companies to invest in its upstream sector, writes James Gavin.

A further $553m pledge has boosted the outgoing Biden administration’s commitments to the Lobito Corridor and adjacent projects to over $4bn. This points to a significant revitalisation of US ties with African countries – which may be too little, too late, although the Lobito project is unlikely to be halted by a more mercantilist Trump administration.