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The Nigerian government needs an urgent boost after essential macroeconomic reform measures sparked huge public opposition. By placing President Bola Tinubu at the centre of plans to revive long stalled projects, Abuja can point to the potential for a better economic performance ahead – at least in the longer term – while opponents test the administration’s resilience with the threat of more short-term disorder.

Crude oil cargoes worth some $400m have been exported from Libya by an obscure private company, in the latest sign of a breakdown of authority in the country. Blockades and force majeure stoppages at other oil facilities, along with the exile of a controversial central bank governor, threaten to plunge the country into an existential crisis. It comes as the compromises which have helped to contain civil conflicts since the fall of the Qadhafi regime look ever harder to sustain, writes John Hamilton

In the final month of the presidential election campaign, Tunisians face a scenario increasingly common across the developing world. With the right approach to decision-making progress in the electricity generating sector is possible, but presidential meddling and growing competition between deep-state interests makes life difficult for technocratic officials, foreign investors and local partners. The quandary is particularly acute in the emerging renewable energy space, writes John Hamilton.

It may not be lending as much as in recent decades, but China retains a dominant position as an economic partner and political ally in Africa. President Xi Jinping is now trying to reposition his country as a source of ‘small but beautiful’ projects, but Beijing will fight to maintain its hold over resource flows, having built up a strong position in many markets that western rivals will find hard to shift, writes Jon Marks.

There has been renewed turbulence in South Sudan’s oil and gas sector, with the government stepping in to block a deal for London AIM-listed Savannah Energy to buy upstream assets from Malaysian national oil company Petronas for $1.25bn. It comes as South Sudan tries to resume pipeline exports of Dar Blend crude oil, which have been offline for more than six months.

Abdelmadjid Tebboune won a second term as president, with a landslide victory in Algeria’s 7 September election. However, he then joined his two opponents in raising questions about irregularities and the regulator’s handling of the poll.

The nominally ‘independent candidate’ Abdelmajid Tebboune seems set for a second term when Algerians vote in the 7 September presidential election. He has promised accelerated investment in electricity and other infrastructure, a more responsive business environment and faster delivery of jobs and social services – with big new hydrocarbons deals to pay for it all.

Despite an Angolan-brokered ceasefire signed on 30 July between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, rebels of the Alliance du Fleuve Congo and their M23 allies are moving north towards Butembo. Their advance along Lake Edward could reach the DRC’s Albertine Graben oil blocks, though these have been unlicensed for several years.

Despite many challenges, local investors are continuing to make large bets on the mature assets being sold off by international majors. However, the wider economic environment is also difficult, with widespread protests laying bare the scale of the problems facing President Tinubu’s government, writes Leonard Lawal in Abuja with Marc Howard.

A deal has ended a three-month suspension of oil shipments from the Niger-Benin Export Pipeline, enabling the resumption of significant Nigerien production – and vital foreign exchange earnings for Niamey. Meanwhile, the Nigerien junta has appointed a new oil minister with intriguing connections and has signed a deal with Algiers to restart work at a northern oil block, writes Marc Howard with Virgile Ahissou in Cotonou.

President Emmanuel Macron’s intervention on the Western Sahara question adds another level of complication and irritation to international relations in north-west Africa. His motive in spelling out support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for the territory in a letter to King Mohammed VI, which he must have known would be immediately leaked to the media, is hard to explain. It puts major French business interests in Algeria in peril and will aggravate regional tensions. All sides will have to work hard to avoid an accidental escalation.

Reeling from the suspension of exports from the Niger-Benin Export Pipeline, the military regime in Niamey has sought to relaunch its mothballed NOC as an upstream player. It has also looked at reviving a tie-in to the Chad-Cameroon pipeline – an option previously rejected in favour of the NBEP, and is preparing expressions of interest for a new 100,000 b/d refinery.

The CNSP regime has triumphantly commemorated the anniversary of its ousting of President Bazoum. But the festivities merely distract from a worsening security situation that has seen major oil investor CNPC suspend work in the Agadem Rift Basin, part of a $7bn investment including a pipeline which remains idle over a dispute with Benin. Niger’s woes lay bare the folly of the chauvinistic politics advanced by the Sahel’s juntas, writes Marc Howard.

Another round of energy sector appointments has been made by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s administration, part of what some Senegalese observers have called the ‘de-Mackyisation’ of the energy sector. The new recruits largely comprise technocrats, external experts, and academics.

The leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are taking steps to create a new regional body to replace their former membership of Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) but it remains unclear how the plan will be organised and financed.