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The Indian government plans to introduce rules to phase out the gas supply monopolies of gas distribution companies in 34 cities, including Mumbai and New Delhi, within 6 months. The government will work on the rules within three months and they will be implemented in another three months.

In 2009, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) attributed exclusive gas marketing rights over a 5-year period to companies having gas distribution networks in cities, along with exclusive rights to use the networks for 25 years, as a way to help them recover their costs. However, the PNGRB plans to open the market to competition, allowing consumers to choose a new gas supplier.

This decision should affect GAIL’s activities, since the company is the large distribution company in India. The company has direct and indirect stakes in many of single-city distributors, such as Indraprastha Gas in New Delhi or Mahanagar Gas in Mumbai, which could now face competition. Indian Oil and Adani Gas, which were also awarded marketing rights in cities where they distributed gas, would also lose their gas supply monopolies.

The PNGRB recently awarded more than 130 city gas projects to large oil and gas companies including GAIL, Adani, Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp and Ltd (BPCL) and to smallest companies. They will expend the size of gas distribution pipelines by 2/3 to provide piped gas to more than 22 million new domestic customers. India aims to connect 10 million households with piped gas by 2020.

The Ministry of Petroleum of Ivory Coast has signed four new production sharing agreements (PSA) with Eni and Total for the exploration of four oil blocks, in which the companies will invest around US$185m. …

Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor has announced the start of oil production from the Trestakk subsea field on Haltenbanken in the Norwegian Sea, which is estimated to hold recoverable resources of 76 mbl of oil and was developed at a cost of NOK 5bn (€520m). It will produce around 22,000 bbl/d (up to 44,000 bbl/d at peak production) over a 12-year period.

The Tunisian Ministry of Industry and Small and Medium Entreprises has opened a third round of bidding for 70 MW of solar PV projects, offering 60 MW of large projects (i.e. with a maximum capacity of 10 MWp for each project) and 10 MW for PV projects with a capacity not exceeding 1 MWp. Interested companies will have to submit bids until 26 November 2019.

The Ministry of Energy of Israel has received bids from two consortia in a tender for offshore oil and gas exploration, namely a consortium of Cairn Energy, SOCO International and Ratio Oil, and a consortium of Energean and Israel Opportunity. The two bidders offered to explore 12 of the 19 available blocks within 5 zones.

The Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy of Ethiopia expects the 254 MW Genale Dawa hydropower project to be connected to the national power grid and to start generating power in August 2019. The project is currently being built by China Gezhouba Group in southeastern Ethiopia and it should generate over 1.6 TWh/year. …

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) have approved loans of €145m and €140m, respectively, to finance the development of the 500 MW Núñez de Balboa photovoltaic solar PV project, which Iberdrola is currently building in the Badajóz province municipalities of Usagre, Hinojosa del Valle and Bienvenida of Extremadura (Spain).

Public Service Co. of Oklahoma (PSO) and Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO), two companies part of the US power group American Electric Power (AEP), have unveiled plans to buy three wind projects totalling 1,485 MW developed by Invenergy in Oklahoma (United States).