From Adewale Sanyaolu, Calgary, Canada

Nigeria and other 17 member countries under the auspices of the African Petroleum Producers Organisation in collaboration with Afreximbank have concluded plans to establish a $5 billion African Energy Bank(AEB).

Secretary General of APPO, Mr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, disclosed this at a media briefing held on the sidelines of the ongoing 24th World Petroleum Congress(WPC) in Calgary, Canada,yesterday.

Ibrahim explained that the establishment of the bank is to address the funding challenge often associated with oil and gas projects.

According to him, the AEB shall be an independent supra-national financial institution whose main objective is to close the gap resulting from the decision of Western financiers of the industry to discontinue funding the industry, especially in Africa.

The bank, he said, shall be open to all investors who share its vision that Africa shall need to use all

forms of available energy for the fore-seeable future in order to eliminate the huge poverty on the continent, saying that is not to say that AEB shall not look into other energies.

On strategies to address the technology and expertise challenge, the APPO boss said a team from the Secretariat undertook an assessment tour of oil and gas research, development, innovation and training institutions in APPO member countries, with a view to establishing the professional level of these institutions.

‘‘We were pleasantly surprised at the level of advancement of many of the institutions visited, in terms of their training programs, facilities and equipment as well as faculties.

We concluded that given the huge financial requirements for establishing high class oil and gas research and training institutions, APPO member countries need not all establish these institutions. Instead, each country can establish institutions for training oil and gas technicians and well as middle level personnel.

For the highly skilled sectors, we plan to have regional centers of excellence in the various sectors of the industry. In this regard, Sonatrach, the National Oil Company of Algeria hosted the inaugural meeting of Directors of Oil and Gas Research and Training Institutions last June, in Bourmedes, Algeria.

Nigeria is hosting the 2nd Africa Roundtable on Local Content next month while Angola has indicated interest to host the next one in the first quarter of 2024.

In pursuing this objective, we believe that partnership with players from the technologically countries will be fruitful. The oil and gas industry in Canada is one place that we believe we can come to for technological support. Partnership is critical to our success and we are prepared to partner with all like-minded institutions to pursue our objectives,”.

Omar further hinted that APPO is currently addressing the challenge of markets and energy infrastructure by working on producing a blue print for the integration of the African continent by establishing cross border energy infrastructure.

Regrettably, he said, most of the energy infrastructure that exists on the continent today, were established to serve extra-Africa interests.

‘’That is why our pipelines run from the fields to the sea ports for export. The time has come for us to route these pipelines from areas of plenty to areas of need within Africa.

‘‘For too long, we have been told that Africans do not have purchasing power, so our energy needs external markets. But we all know that energy is the biggest catalyst to economic development. So, if the people cannot access energy because they do not have the purchasing power, when will they ever get out of poverty?

He maintained that in APPO, it believes that that poverty cycle cannot be broken if we continue

believing on this received wisdom. Deliberate policies must be created to make our people have access to energy and with that, the poverty cycle shall be broken.

‘‘Give the people energy not just to light their homes but to do cottage industries and you will be shocked at the quantum leap in the national Gross Domestic Products,’’.

On energy transition, he emphasised that APPO does not contest the science of climate change nor it’s not against energy transition.

‘‘What we are saying is that giving our peculiar situation in terms of socio-economic development, and the fact that the problems of climate change were caused, not by us but by the economically advanced countries of the world, using fossil fuels, calling us to join the same speedy train to net-zero is unfair and punitive,’’.

He explained that one of the first assignments given to the APPO Secretariat after the reform was to

conduct a study on the future of the oil and gas industry in Africa in the light of the energy transition. The findings of the study according to him have continued to shape APPO’s strategy.

The study, he said, found out that the global pursuit of energy transition pose four imminent challenges to African oil and gas producing and dependent countries.

These imminent challenges are : funding, technology and expertise challenge, markets and energy Infrastructure challenge

However, he said, APPO has, since the completion of the study, and its review by the APPO Long

Term Strategy Committee, and the approval of the recommendations of the Committee by the APPO Ministerial Council, been diligently pursuing the practical recommendations to ensure that its member countries are not forced to declare the over 125 billion barrels of proven oil and 650 trillion cubic feet of

gas reserves as stranded assets, when the continent has the largest proportion of the world’s population living in energy poverty.

‘‘Africa, as most of you know has over 900 million of its 1.4 billion people living without access to any form of modern energy for cooking or domestic heating.

These people use wood, sticks, cow dung and other unhealthy sources of energy to cook and heat their homes, causing millions of deaths from respiratory illnesses especially among infants, children and the aged. As for electricity, which the developed world has come to take for granted, over 600 million Africans do have access to it,’’.

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