Latest news with #Bioko
Zawya
23-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
GEPetrol Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Joins African Energy Week (AEW) 2025 as Equatorial Guinea Accelerates Upstream Revival
Bienvenido Nguema Envo, CEO of Equatorial Guinea's national oil company GEPetrol, has been confirmed as a speaker at African Energy Week (AEW): Invest in African Energies 2025, taking place from September 29 to October 3 in Cape Town. His participation comes at a pivotal moment for Equatorial Guinea as the country undertakes bold steps to revitalize its oil and gas industry, attract new investment and strengthen energy security across West Africa. Under Nguema Envo's leadership, GEPetrol is executing a robust development strategy that includes new production sharing contracts (PSCs), the relaunch of exploration and drilling activities, and a transformative field redevelopment program. His participation at AEW: Invest in African Energies 2025 is expected to spotlight these initiatives, while sharing insight into the role GEPetrol is playing in shaping the next phase of growth for Equatorial Guinea's energy sector. AEW: Invest in African Energies is the platform of choice for project operators, financiers, technology providers and government, and has emerged as the official place to sign deals in African energy. Visit for more information about this exciting event. Among the highlights of GEPetrol's recent activities is the company's strategic partnership with independent exploration and production company Panoro Energy for Block EG-23, a highly prospective offshore asset north of Bioko Island. Under the PSC, Panoro Energy now holds an 80% participating interest and operatorship of Block EG-23, while GEPetrol holds the remaining 20%. With estimated resources of 104 billion barrels of oil and condensate and 215 billion cubic feet of gas, the block has already yielded multiple discoveries and is a focal point of renewed exploration. The collaboration aligns with Equatorial Guinea's infrastructure-led approach to boosting upstream development. In addition, GEPetrol and energy major Chevron signed PSCs last year for Blocks EG-06 and EG-11, both located near the prolific Zafiro field. These deepwater blocks are viewed as central to reversing national production declines and unlocking new discoveries. The agreements come as part of Equatorial Guinea's broader effort to incentivize exploration in underdeveloped acreage and fast-track resource monetization. GEPetrol recently assumed operatorship of the Zafiro field – Equatorial Guinea's largest oil asset – following energy major ExxonMobil's exit. A multi-phase redevelopment plan is underway, with the company targeting increased production and operational optimization. A recent $350 million technical services contract awarded to international service provider Petrofac represents a key milestone in the redevelopment of the field as well as GEPetrol's transformation into a globally competitive upstream operator. 'Bienvenido Nguema Envo's participation at AEW: Invest in African Energies 2025 reinforces the strategic repositioning of GEPetrol as a driving force in Equatorial Guinea's energy resurgence. As the country advances major offshore projects, redevelops legacy fields and positions itself as a regional gas hub, Nguema Envo's leadership and vision are key to unlocking investment and production growth,' states NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. With 1.1 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and 1.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, Equatorial Guinea's energy potential remains significant. Nguema Envo's engagement at AEW: Invest in African Energies 2025 will provide a high-level view of GEPetrol's future-forward strategy, ongoing partnerships and the country's broader energy transformation. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Energy Chamber.
Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The one subject I didn't dare raise with Simon Mann as we sat in his hellish African prison? That the despot he'd tried to overthrow was intent on eating his testicles! IAN GALLAGHER recalls his bizarre encounter with the roguish Old Etonian
When I first met Simon Mann he was inching across a dusty prison yard in leg irons and handcuffs. Not that his tortuous shuffle was due entirely to his shackles. He moved deliberately slowly, he later told me, the better to savour every precious gulp of fresh air, lest any one of them might be his last. It was March 2008 and I had flown from London to interview Britain's most famous soldier of fortune – who died suddenly aged 72 on Friday – in Africa's most infamous jail, Black Beach. In those days, the prison, on the tropical volcanic island of Bioko off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, was even more of a hellhole than Devil's Island, home to the fictional Papillon. Torture was rife, malaria and yellow fever endemic, cell floors were slippery with rats and sewage, and guards thought nothing of keeping inmates starved for days. Nobody much fancied Mann's chances of getting out alive. Caught red-handed leading a band of mercenaries on a mission to overthrow the country's murderous dictator, President Teodoro Obiang, Mann had already spent four years in a maximum-security jail in Zimbabwe where he was put through a mock execution and threatened with being fed alive to crocodiles. Ghastly enough, you might think. But things then took a turn for the worse. After losing an extradition battle, Mann was spirited across Africa to oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, sandwiched between Cameroon and Gabon – and delivered straight into the hands of Obiang, a despot of reputedly cannibalistic tendencies. Word had spread that he was intent on eating the Old Etonian's testicles and dragging his naked body through the streets. I once put this claim to Obiang, incidentally, during an interview in his presidential palace as he sat, flanked by bodyguards, on a throne beneath an almost life-size portrait of himself. He shook his head. 'I'm not a cannibal, I'm a humanitarian,' he protested. I decided not to press the point. On that morning in Black Beach jail, though, it seemed uncharitable to burden Mann with thoughts of cannibalism. He had enough on his plate, so to speak. After enjoying the sunshine in the prison yard, he appeared in the doorway of an air-conditioned courtroom, part of the jail complex, where I waited with Mail on Sunday photographer Keith Waldegrave. We had expected a pitiful wreck, yet here he was, a little fragile, but all smiles and playing the gracious host, just as if he was welcoming us to Sunday lunch at Inchmery, his 20-acre estate on the banks of the River Beaulieu in Hampshire. 'Welcome, welcome – so good of you to come,' beamed the former SAS troop commander turned mercenary. Charming and witty, he would remain upbeat throughout our interview. Even so, it was hard to reconcile his appearance, almost donnish but for his shackles and grey prison uniform, with his dogs-of-war exploits in Sierra Leone and Angola which made headlines worldwide. This was the man, after all, who intended to land here, this steamy West African outpost, in swashbuckling style, leading nearly 70 mercenaries on a plane loaded with guns and ammunition – had he not been arrested, that is, in Harare on March 7, 2004, when the plot unravelled spectacularly. 'Where do you want me,' he asked cheerfully. Prison guards led their star inmate to a chair in front of the dock. Behind him President Obiang glowered from a framed photograph hanging on the wall. Dispensing with small talk, Mann pushed his specs to the top of his nose with his handcuffs and announced: 'I do want to talk to you about this, absolutely. I think things have gone beyond the stage of telling tales out of school.' And so his extraordinary story unspooled. His mission, he said, was to replace Obiang with Severo Moto Nsa, an Equatoguinean opposition leader living in Madrid. Equatorial Guinea has the third-largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, making it a valuable prize. Along with shady tycoons, others said to be part of the murky affair included the disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer, politicians at the heart of the then New Labour government and Lady Thatcher's son, Mark, who was later arrested. Mann told me Sir Mark Thatcher, whom he described as 'a very naughty boy', was at the heart of the plot, claiming he was obsessed with how best to exploit commercial interests in Equatorial Guinea after the takeover. Mann would get a generous cut too, of course. And he outlined the role of London-based Lebanese oil tycoon Eli Calil, now dead, who counted British politicians including Peter Mandelson among his circle of influential friends. Calil and Sir Mark Thatcher, said Mann, 'have let me down very badly. It is these I feel most bitter about because of their intimate involvement in all this'. After his arrest in Zimbabwe Mann famously smuggled a letter to his wife from his Harare prison cell demanding 'a large splodge of wonga' from 'Smelly', 'Scratcher' and others to get him out. 'Smelly is Eli Calil,' confirmed Mann. 'It is the name my wife gave him. She is very good at assigning names to people. And yes, Thatcher was known as Scratcher.' But the 'wonga' was not forthcoming and, four years on, Mann's fury was still raw as he spoke that day. 'When you are on an expedition and get stuck half way up a mountain you don't expect the others on the expedition to take down their tents, roll up their sleeping bags and go back to London,' said Mann. 'That has made me fantastically angry. Those two should be here in shackles as well.' But while he spoke expansively about the coup plot, he clouded when it came to matters personal. Anxious not to upset his hosts, he made light of the conditions he endured and said he was being treated quite well. Even being denied access to the exercise yard was a source of mirth. 'It's OK,' he said, and getting up to move across the room, laughed: 'I just walk up and down my cell like this. No problem.' It was stiff-upper-lip in excelsis. Could we have expected anything less? The English public school system and his military training had taught Mann, a scion of the Watney Mann brewing family, all about resilience. But how did he stop himself going insane? Or losing hope? 'Ah, that's the secret,' he said wistfully. 'I've got seven children in England and I miss them desperately.' His wife had not visited, neither in Equatorial Guinea nor during his incarceration in Zimbabwe. 'I don't want her to, and have told her that. I don't want her to see me this way.' It was at this point in our interview that the minister of national security, Manuel Nguema Mba, who was observing from the back of the courtroom, decided it was time Mann was returned to his cell. 'The minister has much to do today,' said an aide. 'He is very busy at the moment.' Just how busy became clear later in the day when it emerged that police had apparently foiled another possible coup. A car shipped from Spain had been intercepted containing hidden guns and ammunition. It served as a reminder that covetous eyes were always focused on the former Spanish colony, dismissed on the world stage as an 'insignificant' microstate before the discovery of two vast oil fields transformed its fortunes. It was impossible not to feel desperately sorry for Mann, at heart a romantic adventurer, as he was led back to his life of solitary confinement. A few months later he was jailed for 34 years. Some cast Mann as a Wodehousian figure, a bumbling Bertie Wooster. But he was much smarter than that and managed to convince the Obiang regime that he could help snare the two men that they wanted to throw into Black Beach above all others – Thatcher and Calil. After only 15 months Mann was pardoned by the dictator he had tried to overthrow and returned to his family in England, where he was introduced to his infant son, Arthur, who had been born while he was in prison in Zimbabwe. Officially, the Equatorial Guinea regime freed Mann on compassionate grounds because of his need for medical treatment. Many observers felt the early release had been Mann's reward for his willingness to identify traitors inside the country who were in on the coup. I saw him again a year or so later at a party in London. Once again he laughed and joked about his ordeal. We spoke a few times afterwards, once when he sought advice on becoming a newspaper foreign correspondent. Clearly his experience had not dented his appetite for adventure. Yesterday I spoke to Jim Nally, writer and film director who assisted Mann with his memoirs. He said he tried 'every trick in the book' to get Mann to 'open up'. 'I felt that discussing his homecoming might help. He kept putting it off. He didn't want to 'do this' at home. We finally agreed to meet in the office of an old friend. 'We were led to an office with a large leather couch. It was the first time we hadn't sat at a table. Notebook, pen and tape recorder primed, I asked him to start with his journey back to the UK. He broke down. I've never seen a man weep for 90 minutes before. 'Head between knees, body convulsing with raw grief, he kept apologising. And asking if 'the chaps outside' could see. I reassured him that there were no other witnesses. 'Simon could justify everything except what his time away did to his wife and children. He swore me to secrecy about what happened that day – but deep down I think he'd want them to know.'
