Maputo, Mozambique | AFP | At least 73 people were killed and 110 others injured Thursday when a truck carrying petrol blew up in western Mozambique near Malawi, the government said in a statement. “The incident occurred when citizens tried to take petrol from a truck” in the village of …
Read More »Iran back, signs major gas deal with France’s Total
Tehran, Iran | AFP | Iran signed a deal with France’s Total on Tuesday to develop a major offshore gas field, its first big contract with a Western energy firm since sanctions were loosened in January. Total will lead a consortium also including China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Iran’s …
Read More »Algeria awards China contract to revamp refinery
Algiers, Algeria | AFP | Algeria’s state energy company Sonatrach on Sunday awarded the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC) a 380-million-euro ($420-million) contract to renovate its Algiers refinery. CPECC, which is affiliated to the China National Petroleum Corporation, will rehabilitate the refinery after Sonatrach severed an initial deal …
Read More »Angolan state oil company mirrors nation’s troubles
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angolan state-owned oil company Sonangol rode the commodities boom that drove the country’s extraordinary growth after civil war ended in 2002, but today it symbolises a national economic crisis. The Luanda-based company has increasingly been in focus since Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of …
Read More »Uganda’s National Oil wins African award
Less than three months since it launched formal operations, the Uganda National Oil Company has received Africa wide recognition after winning the best National Oil Company (NOC) presentation at a recent Oil and Gas forum held in South Africa. The event was organised by Standard Bank. The conference was held …
Read More »ExxonMobil strikes huge oil reserves in offshore Nigeria
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | US oil and gas group ExxonMobil says it has discovered up to one billion barrels of oil in an offshore field in Nigeria, signalling a boost to the country’s crude reserves. The company said in a statement on its website on Thursday that the Owowo …
Read More »Even Dangote feels the pinch as Nigeria’s forex crisis hurts business
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s currency scarcity remains a nightmare that won’t go away, with even Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote feeling the pain. The West African country’s economy has been hammered by the global crash in oil prices — worth 70 per cent of its revenue and the …
Read More »OIL: Angolan lawyers pose landmark challenge to president
Luanda, Angola | AFP | A group of Angolan lawyers has filed a landmark petition challenging veteran leader Eduardo dos Santos’s nomination of his daughter, Africa’s richest woman, as the head of the national oil company. Isabel dos Santos was named head of troubled oil firm Sonangol in June in …
Read More »Oil refinery trouble for Uganda
Oil refinery trouble: Museveni pushed into tight corner A shadowy international company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), a major international tax haven is high up on the list of companies government is courting to invest in the $ 4 billion oil refinery, investigations by The Independent have found. …
Read More »American to build Uganda’s refinery?
American to build refinery? Deal could be blow to sanction-strapped Russians Technocrats at the Energy Ministry and the Ministry of Finance who are working on the country’s pet project, the US$4 billion oil refinery, have learnt to stay cool under pressure. Behind their cool fronts, however, they are working in …
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