In Uganda, the commissioner equity and rights, ministry of gender labour and social development, Bernard Mujuni, announced a few days ago that a Bill to protect the rights of women and minority groups on land acquisition was under study. The announcement is quite understable as only 6% of registered and titled land belong to women. Mr. Mujuni who was speaking at a regional minority and...

Tunisia will need 8.5 billion dinars ($3.71 billion) of external loans in 2017, thus a billion dollar more than it initially planned for in its finance bill, due to higher expenditures and lower fiscal revenues, said Minister of Finance, Lamia Zribi, on December 8. “We could need as much as 8.5 billion dinars of external loans,” the official said during the review of the 2017 finance bill....

Mali’s minister of land affairs, Mohamed Ali Bathily, impressed by the speech of the Congolese delegation at the World Cadastre Summit held last year in Istanbul, Turkey, met on December 7, Congo’s Prime Minister, Clement Mouamba, in the framework of a knowledge-sharing session. A wise decision given that a land reform process is currently ongoing in Bamako, Mali’s capital. “In its...

Tanzanian President, John Magufuli (photo), has announced that the country and Nigeria's Dangote Cement have strike a deal on the supply of natural gas to the latter's manufacturing plant. The President after meeting the company’s chairman, Aliko Dangote, accused unnamed middlemen of meddling with supply plans and said the issue has now been resolved and gas supplies will be sold at a...

South Sudan has begun talks with India regarding the revival of oil blocks, which were closed during the civil war in 2013. South Sudan during initial discussions between the government representatives of the two countries, compensated ONGC Videsh, for the period that the blocks were closed. According to Indian government officials, major areas regarding current law and order situations in...

Sound Energy on Monday, announced that it has received regulatory approval for the acquisition of 75% operated interest in the Sidi Moktar licences, onshore Morocco. The Sidi Moktar licences comprises of three onshore gas permits encompassing 2,700 km² in the Essaouira basin, central Morocco and contain a material existing gas discovery in the Lower Liassic, where two wells have already been...

Eni has agreed to sell a 30% stake in the offshore Shorouk concession to Rosneft for $1.125 billion, thereby reducing its stake in the giant Zohr gas field to 60%. This is coming a week after the Russian oil firm announced its interest in purchasing a stake of up to 35 percent the offshore concession in Egypt. According to the Italian oil and gas group, Rosneft would refund the pro-rata...

The former Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdallah Salem El-Badri (photo), has said that a crude oil production cut of about 600,000 barrels per day from non-OPEC members is a necessity. “You have to cut production. This decision is a positive step forward,” he said at a Platts conference in New York. OPEC agreed last month to cut production...

Algeria's has reduced its petroleum products import bill for 2016 by $1billion; the deputy chairman of downstream operations at Sonatrach, Akli Remini, revealed. According to Remini, the renovation of the two refinery units of Arzew and Skikda “has made it possible for us to reduce our bill of petroleum products imports, such as fuel, by one billion dollars for the 2016 fiscal...

Tullow Oil is to commence the drilling of its Erut well in Block 13T in the south Lokichar basin on December 16, 2016, the company’s Kenyan exploration manager, Kevin Christopherson, revealed. This he declared at the just concluded SPE/AAPG Africa Energy and Technology Conference which took place in Nairobi. According to Christopherson, the well has the potential to de-risk the northern...