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Algeria’s national oil company renews onshore PSC in Niger

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SONATRACH International (SIPEX BVI), the international subsidiary of the Algerian national oil company, has recently renewed its onshore production sharing contract (PSC) in Niger. On February 4th, it signed in Niamey the updated PSC for its Kafra Block.

The initial PSC was signed in 2015 and led to the successful drilling of two exploratory wells. KFR-1, drilled in 2018, notably discovered 168m barrels of heavy crude oil (2P). A year later, KFRN-1 discovered another 400m barrels of paraffin-rich reserves (waxy oil).

Following several analyses, SONATRACH mentioned that current updated liquids volumes were estimated at 100m barrels in place (2P).

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AXIAN Telecom makes successful debut on debt capital markets

AXIAN Telecom, the pan-African provider of telecommunications, mobile money services and digital infrastructure, has successfully priced its $420m senior notes due in 2027. The company raised capital to finance the repayment of some of its existing debt and support its overall growth across the continent. Since 2004, AXIAN Telecom has expanded into Tanzania, Madagascar, Togo, Mauritius and Uganda, and has joint ventures in Senegal, Réunion-Mayotte, and Comoros. The bond was launched on February 9th and was supposed by anchor orders from major development finance institutions (DFIs) such as the CDC Group of the UK, the DEG of Germany, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), but also the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF). The bond was priced at 7.375% and the order book ended up being 2.2x oversubscribed, with half of the investors coming from the United States.

Kenya’s 40 MW Kesses 1 solar PV facility expected online in Q2 2022

In Kenya, Alten Energías Renovables is expected to commission its 40 MW Kesses 1 solar PV plant in the spring this year. The company is currently constructing the facility outside of Eldoret in Kenya. It is located only 1km away from the existing Eldosol and Radiant solar plants of Frontier Energy, each equipped with a solar power generation capacity of 40 MW. Together, they form what is known as the Eldoret Solar City, and one of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest solar complexes. Kesses 1 is notably financed by the Standard Bank of South Africa and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG). Standard Bank is supplying $41 million in debt comprising a term loan, VAT and Debt Service Reserve facility. Meanwhile, the EAIF is providing a US$35 million loan over a 15-year term. “The first part of the loan was disbursed to Alten Kenya Solarfarms BV (Alten), the Kenyan business of the Alten Group, in late December 2021,” the EAIF said in a statement last week. Kesses 1 is being developed in parallel with the 50 MW Kopere Solar PV Plant located 60km away, as both projects are executed by the same contractor, Voltalia. Full details on the solar power plants within Kenya’s Eldoret Solar City are available in the “Projects” section within your Hawilti+ research terminal.