African countries with new, large scale hydrocarbon projects, are campaigning that the global energy transition should not lead to shutting the door in their faces.
The continent has been debating the need for a sizeable financing institution, solely devoted to funding the growing queue of natural gas and crude oil development projects, most of which are planned for export, as most African countries desperately lack local markets to absorb the molecules.
Securing financing for the development of these reserves is challenging, owing to the global energy transition, notes Omar Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary General, African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO).
Ibrahim says that the Congo Brazzaville based regional institution is working on ensuring that Africa’s dependence on external sources of funding for oil and gas is put to an end.
“We are working with Afreximbank to establish an African Energy Bank. Two weeks ago, we approved the timeline and this bank should come online in the first half of next year. We are also working on research centres in Africa,” Ibrahim told the delegates at the MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2023, which held in late November 2023 in Nouakchott, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
In Mauritania, the government “has been successful in implementing a policy that will make Mauritania a producer and exporter of natural gas to the rest of the world,” according to Nani O. Chrougha, the country’s Minister of Petroleum, Mines and Energy.
One project that is close to completion is the 2.3Million ton per annum (2.3MMTPA) Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) Liquefied Natural Gas Project, under development by Kosmos Energy and bp.
The field straddles Senegal and Mauritania and the project is a phased development.
Gordon Birrell, EVP Production & Operations at bp, weighed in at the event: “GTA is 90% complete and we are very close to achieving first gas, the project is both ambitious and critical. It is a great energy project for many reasons: it has great scale, great complexity and great significance for Mauritania and the world.”
SOURCE: africaoilandgasreports