The African Energy Chamber (www.EnergyChamber.org) organized a Power Breakfast yesterday in Malabo to mark the launch of its Africa Energy Outlook 2021. The event gathered all of the Chamber’s partners and industry stakeholders in Equatorial Guinea as the market embarks on a path to recovery in 2021.
Despite its remarkable resilience, Equatorial Guinea’s oil sector is facing the same dire situation as the rest of global energy markets: plunging oil prices, uncertain demand and dry of capital on the back of the energy transition. In such a context, the country has embarked early on an ambitious investment outreach programme with the Year of Energy 2020 and the Year of Investment 2021. Key priorities include boosting local content, expanding midstream and downstream gas infrastructure, opening up the Rio Muni to onshore oil & gas activities, and leveraging on the country’s tremendous minerals and mining potential to further diversify the economy.
In its latest 2021 Outlook however, the African Energy Chamber has called on African governments and industry stakeholders to come together and do more to support the sector’s competitiveness and attractiveness.
A key concern for Equatorial Guinea’s oil & gas industry remains the lack of competitiveness of its fiscal terms and the lack of an attractive enabling environment that supports local private sector growth and jobs creation. “The time for fiscal reforms in Equatorial Guinea and the CEMAC region is now. If we do not act now, our companies risk going bankrupt, our economic parameters will worsen and our jobs will be in jeopardy,” declared Leoncio Amada NZE, CEO of APEX Industries and Head of the CEMAC Region at the African Energy Chamber.
SOURCE: cnbcafrica.com