The Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Kachikwu (photo), has announced that a Chinese delegation is to visit the country this month for talks on the West African country's oil and gas industry.This is coming four months after the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced that it signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) worth $80 billion with Chinese...

Owner of multiple oil palm plantations in Sierra Leone, the Société financière des caoutchoucs (Socfin) has angered local producers who claim that “some of its investment is taking place in the form of land grabbing”. The producers formed the Malen Affected Land Owners and Users Association (MALOA) to fight against Socfin. “We want investors. What we are against is people coming to...

Italian Edison is to start the drilling of three new wells in its gas concession in Egypt in January 2017, the company’s Commercial Manager, Tarek Shalaby, revealed. The three wells will be drilled in the South Edco, Abu Qir, and North West El Gendy concessions and the company plans to start the development of the North Abu Qir-3 by December 2016 to produce 80 Mmcf/d of gas and 3,500bpd of...

Sound Energy Plc. is expecting to produce its first commercial gas from the Tendrara assets in Morocco in the first half of 2019, a corporate presentation on the company’s website revealed. The document revealed that the development will start with the horizontal well, TE-7, followed by TE-8, which will test the level of the gas opportunity on the acreage.Near-term potential of the asset...

Aiming to sanitize land management and optimize allotment, Congo’s Minister of land issues and public domain, Martin Parfait Aimé Coussoud Mavoungou announced on September 29, in Brazzaville, a series of measures to concretely improve transparency and coordination of cadastral policies, Agence d’information d’Afrique central reports. Blaming professionals, he denounced “insufficiencies...

South Africa’s state-owned power utility, Eskom, has secured from the Chinese Development Bank a $500 million credit line. The loan will provide the firm additional funds to finance capital expenditure in the 2016/2017 financial year. “The successful execution of this credit facility increases the funding secured for financial year 2016/17 to R51bn, meaning we have secured 75 percent...

US firm General Electric (GE) has announced plans to invest about $150 million in Nigeria, in development project, by 2017, an official from the institution said, cited by Reuters. “There are development projects where we are investing”, said Jay Ireland, Director General GE for Africa. The funding falls under a $2 billion investment programme of GE in Africa, in the years to...

China Fortune Land Development Co (CFLD) will invest $20 billion in the second stage of its project to build a new administrative capital in Egypt, a statement published on Oct. 3 by the Egyptian government reveals. Under the agreement signed by Cairo and the Chinese firm, the stage includes construction of housing and offices over 5,700 hectares. The project for the new administrative...

“Discussions have started regarding the creation of an university solely dedicated to cocoa and chocolate”. Those were the words of the Ivorian minister for agriculture and rural development, Mamadou Sangafowa Coulibaly who announced the upcoming creation of a cocoa-centered university. The university will provide “high quality training and research and improve productivity and revenues...

France’s Total has said that Africa could be a significant global market for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2025, as more countries targets gas-to-power projects. The world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent has been said to be gradually diverting to LNG as a source of global power. “It could be collectively a 20 to 30 million tonnes per year market by 2025. Africa...