Africa Oil said it has been given approval by the Kenyan government for its farm in with Maersk Oil. The company said the move means completion of the farm out of blocks 10BB, 13T and 10BA can now proceed.
Eni has started production from the Mpungi field in the West Hub Development Project offshore Angola. The company said the start-up of the Mpungi in Block 15/06 will bring production to a ramp-up of approximately 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boed) in the first quarter of this year.
Bowleven said it has now wrapped up an extended flow testing programme at Moambe and Zingana. The Africa focused oil and gas explorer said the results continue to support plans for around five to six mmscfd of gas for power generation under a development scheme with Actis and Eneo in Cameroon.
A massive truck bomb exploded near a police base in the western Libyan town of Zliten, killing at least 60 police officers and wounding around 200 others, officials have said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but a local Islamic State affiliate has been trying to gain a foothold in Zliten, spreading westward from its central stronghold of Sirte along the North African country’s coast.
Security guards trying to protect an oil port in Libya have been killed after fierce battles with ISIS (Islamic State).
Islamic State (ISIS) militants have been battling to seize the largest oil depot in Libya, according to reports. The Telegraph said the terror group, which previously gained control of former leader Colonel Gaddafi’s home city of Sirte, has reportedly been involved in clashes with guards trying to protect Sidra oil port.
Nigerian's went to the ballot box this year to elect a new leader of the West African country.
Statoil ASA is seeking clarification on Tanzania’s new petroleum law and wants to learn how it will affect companies like itself already operating in the nation, local commercial manager Oivind Holm Karlsen said. “We need to go through the law to make sure we have a common understanding of what it is,” said Karlsen in an interview Tuesday in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, during a break at a conference. “We need to understand what is the implication and how will the production-sharing agreements that we already have be honored in light of that law.” Parliament passed the petroleum legislation in July, after repeated delays, ushering in a royalty regime in which energy companies pay 12.5 percent for onshore oil and gas production and 7.5 percent for offshore.
Plans to roll out as much as 300 gigawatts of renewable energy across Africa by 2030 - twice the continent’s total supplies - have been announced.
“On the brink of a boom,” was the banner on PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s review of Africa’s oil industry 16 months ago. Now, oil below $50 has made more than two out of three investment projects on the continent non-viable. “Capital markets are effectively closed to the oil and gas industry” in Africa, Tony Hayward, former head of BP Plc and now chairman of Genel Energy Plc, said at a conference in Cape Town last month. “A decade of exploration, with billions of dollars invested and only limited commercial success.”
Revelations that top officials are suspected of pilfering the equivalent of almost the entire annual defense budget would cause shock waves in most countries. Not in Nigeria, where the public sees political power and graft as bedfellows. The novelty this time is that President Muhammadu Buhari immediately ordered the arrest of a former national security adviser, after a government commission found that he and other officials allegedly misappropriated as much as $5.5 billion that was supposed to buy equipment to fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram. “I don’t think Nigerians would be very surprised about somebody stealing $5 billion at all,” Boye Gbadebo, a Nigerian national who works as an Africa analyst at consultancy Ake Partners, said by phone from Johannesburg.
Bowleven said its Moambe well has started the flow of hydrocarbons onshore Cameroon. The Africa focused oil and exploration company said the step forward was taken after the installation of testing equipment. An extended well testing programme is planned at Moambe to determine the productivity and connectivity of the shallower reservoir units.
A cargo plane has crashed near the international airport in the South Sudanese capital of Juba, killing at least 23 people. Some of the victims were children, according to an Associated Press reporter near the scene, who said wreckage was strewn over the east side of the River Nile.
FAR Limited said drilling has started to appraise the SNE oil discovery offshore Senegal. Three wells will be drilled back to back in a program estimated to be completed in the middle of next year. The company said both the SNE-2 and SNE-3 appraisals will be logged, cored and flow tested.
McDermott said its joint venture project in Ghana has received regulatory approval. The company is working on the McDermott Marine Construction Ghana Limited venture to pursue key offshore opportunities in Ghana. The announcement was made by officials from the joint venture during Africa Oil Week in Cape Town.
Wood Mackenzie said exploration and production companies in Africa will need to bring project costs down even further and find a "smarter" way of working. The company said Africa’s host government have a key role to play in ensuring that local content requirements are reasonable and fiscal terms are competitive in order to attract investors and unlock new project sanctions. Only one third of the continent’s pre-sanction projects have been estimated as economical at less than $50 per barrel.
RAK Petroleum said production has started production from a second platform off the Ivory Coast. The privately-held company said Foxtrot International - in which it owns one third - has moved on to the next phase of the $1billion expansion programme. The first in the series, the Marlin-B1ST well, is currently flowing am average of 1,100 barrels per day of 26 degree API oil.
A campaign to boost household solar energy to help some of Africa’s 620 million people without electricity has been launched by the UK Government.
Nigeria’s government plans to split an oil- industry bill stuck in parliament for seven years and resubmit it to lawmakers after it held up reforms and deterred investment in Africa’s largest crude producer, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said. Breaking up the Petroleum Industry Bill, or PIB, into smaller laws focused on fiscal and regulatory measures in Nigeria’s energy industry would make it easier to pass through parliament, he said. The bill, first presented to parliament in 2008, will be resent to lawmakers in the first quarter of 2016.
Sound Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Schlumberger oilfield holdings for a strategic relationship between the two companies in Europe and Africa. The non-binding term agreement represents the first preliminary agreement to be entered into under the MOU.
EMAS Offshore has netted $33million in new contract wins to clients in Asia and West Africa. The company revealed the contracts as it also reported an improved full-year profit. The contracts form part of the Singapore and Oslo-listed firm’s strategy to focus its efforts in West Africa.
MOL Group's Brian Glover said the company does not see any "great future" for itself in Central Africa as it eyes further success in the Middle East. In the second part of Energy Voice's week-long series looking at the Hungarian company's operations, the exploration and business development senior vice president spoke about ongoing operations. MOL has had a 40% working interest in the Ngosso Block in Cameroon since 2007.
Dozens of people have been killed in a series of bombings in Nigeria. At least 18 people were killed early today when four women suicide bombers were challenged by soldiers as they tried to enter Maiduguri, according to the National Emergency Management Agency. The explosions happened just hours after two blasts near a mosque in the city killed at least 30 people.
Libya is forming a national unity government after months of difficult talks between the country’s two rival administrations. The north African country’s United Nations envoy Bernardino Leon said candidates for the new government had been decided. The announcement, made in Morocco, is a step towards stitching together the oil-rich but chaotic country that fell apart after the overthrow of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country has been split between an Islamist-backed government based in Tripoli and an internationally-recognised administration in the east.
Nigeria must stop using its rich oil resources as a 'cash cow' if it is to reform the nation's politics and economy, according to a leading expert.