Egypt is looking to reach an agreement with Iraq regarding the direct import of crude oil from the country and hopes to conclude the deal by Q1 of 2017, Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla (photo) revealed. This is coming after Saudi Arabia informed Egypt last month that shipments of oil products expected under a $23 billion aid deal had been halted until further notice. According to El...

Harvest Natural Resources (HNR) has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, HNR Energia, has signed a Sale and Purchase Agreement with BW Energy Gabon, to sell all of its oil and gas interests in Gabon. Under the agreement, BW Energy Gabon will acquire HNR Energia's 100% interest in Harvest Dussafu, which owns a 66.667% interest in the Dussafu production sharing contract encompassing a...

Panoro Energy ASA in its update on the Dussafu Marin production sharing contract in Gabon, announced that its subsidiary Pan Petroleum Gabon B.V. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with BW Energy Gabon Pte. Ltd. (BWEG), the leading global provider of floating production services to the oil and gas industry. Under the terms of the initial partnership agreement, Panoro will farm-out a 25%...

The Nigerian Agip Oil Company, a subsidiary of Italian oil major Eni, has announced that the Zabazaba and Etan deep water project on Oil Prospecting Licence 245, will generate $8billion for the Federal Government. According to the Managing Director of the company, Massimo Insulla, the promoters of the deep water project are eager to take the final investment decision and are determined to...

Exxon Mobil oil workers have decided to put an end to an industrial action which began last week regarding the dismissal of more than 100 staff, a union official revealed. “Production will resume any moment. We just rose from a meeting with the management and the issues that had led to the labour impasse have been resolved after the minister of petroleum intervened,” Lumumba Okugbara, acting...

In Egypt, Royal Dutch Shell has offered the Rosetta concession in Rashid for sale to any international company, a source close to the company revealed. According to the source, Shell chose not to perform any development operations in Rosetta because “development will be expensive with almost no economic feasibility, considering the price of gas produced there.” He added that the Rosetta...

In order to curb land grabbing which is growing significantly, Tanzanian authorities have adopted a new land policy that brings to 33 years, from 99, the lease duration for foreigners, Eurasia Review reports. The adoption of the new policy comes a few months after the Eastern African country launched a campaign to seize “unexploited” lands and discourage shady investors from using them for...

Nigeria launched a call to manifestation of interest to hire legal and financial consultants as well as fiduciary companies to issue its first local sukuk. This was announced on December 19 by the Nigerian Debt Management Office (DMO). The office added it plans to appoint banks and an issuance company as financial consultants, a law firm to draw all documents related to the operation and a...

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) confirmed on December 16, the long and short term sovereign debt rating, both in the local and foreign currencies, of Senegal at B+/B with stable outlook. S&P said in a statement that Senegal’s economic growth should remain strong due to public and private investments as well as reforms planned in the framework of the Plan Senegal Emergent (PSE). This...

Nigeria’s Bank of Industry plans to inject N10 billion ($31.5 million) in the development of its agricultural mechanization. The funds will be used to implement a program to acquire agro-equipment for Nigerian farmers and agricultural service providers. The intervention is expected to create 10,000 direct jobs and 30,000 indirect jobs. According to Waheed Olagunju, Managing Director BoI,...