- Our host Minister and Member of the APPO Ministerial Council, His Excellency Gwede Mantashe, Excellencies Ministers of APPO here present, Excellencies potential ministers of APPO, Excellencies other ministers, Excellency Professor Benedict Okey Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of the Afreximbank, the Secretary General of OPEC, His Excellency Haytham Al-Ghais, Excellencies Ambassadors and Heads of Diplomatic missions, the visionary behind the Africa Energy Week, my friend and brother in the struggle to rid Africa of energy poverty, Dr. NJ Ayuk, Captains of the industry, ladies and gentlemen.
- In my recognitions I distinguished between APPO ministers and potential APPO ministers. This is to say that our doors are open to receiving as many African countries as possible into our organization, including those who have made finds but have not yet started producing and those who are yet to make finds. For those who are yet to make finds, we want you on board because our vision is changing. In the past, APPA, the precursor to APPO, simply focused on cooperation and collaboration in the field of oil and gas among its member countries. The cooperation and collaboration were to facilitate enhanced oil and gas production primarily for export outside Africa.
- Today, the challenges facing oil and gas producing countries in Africa goes beyond oil and gas production for export. A major study conducted by APPO a couple of years ago on the Future of the Oil and Gas Industry in Africa in the Light of the Energy Transition identified three imminent challenges. These are the challenge of financing oil and gas projects, the challenge of oil and gas technology and expertise which the continent lacks and the challenge of creating alternative markets for our oil and gas as those on whom we have depended for markets for our oil and gas continue their efforts to wean themselves from oil and gas in the name of energy transition.
- Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the history of oil and gas production in Africa has been one of heavy dependence. Some will call it interdependence. But I call it dependence or at best unequal interdependence. We have been heavily dependent on outside Africa for project financing, for the technology of the industry and for the markets of our oil and gas. But those on whom we have been solely dependent were never solely dependent on us for their oil and gas.
- Africa cannot continue lamenting its mistakes. It is time to look forward and take uncommon actions to right the wrongs of the past. In doing so, we have to first accept that our salvation as a people lies within us, not from anyone or any country outside. It does not lie in receiving aids in any form. It lies in our ability to get out of our minds the ingrained belief that we, Africans, cannot make it without assistance from today’s developed countries.
- In APPO, we are already in this mind-set and that explains the actions we have taken in the last couple of years to address the imminent challenges that the energy transition poses to the oil and gas industry on our continent.
- The decision of the APPO Ministerial Council to partner with Afreximbank to establish the Africa Energy Bank is one such action – bold, independent and Africa-centered. Please join me in recognizing the members of the APPO Ministerial Council here present for their very bold decision. Ministers Azevedo, Badawi, Oburu, Itoua, Abeke, Khalifa, Alweendo, Lokpobiri and Mantashe. In particular, let us recognize two gentlemen whose role in this game changing project cannot be over-emphasized. Please let us recognize His Excellency Dr. Diamantino Pedro Azevedo, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources of APPO founder Member Country the Republic of Angola and APPO President 2022 and His Excellency Professor Benedict Okey Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Afreximbank.
- When in the first half of 2022, I met with Professor Oramah for the first time to discuss the Africa Energy Bank, after some months of discussions between our two teams, I left that meeting with a very high impression of this Pan-Africanist. Oramah left me in no doubt that he was committed to the struggle to end energy poverty in Africa. I immediately put a call to Dr. Azevedo, the President of APPO, to say that I needed to come see him on the meeting with Professor Oramah. He gave me the go-ahead and off to Luanda I went. I briefed the President and he was as excited as I was. I mentioned that we needed Ministerial Council approval before we could proceed further with negotiations with Afreximbank. The President immediately gave anticipatory approval saying that he would call for an extraordinary Ministerial Council Session to consider and ratify his approval. That was how within a few weeks APPO ministers gathered in Luanda under the high patronage of President Joao Lourenco to mandate us to sign the MoU on the establishment of the Africa Energy Bank.
- Still on the new mindset and the actions APPO has taken to address the other challenges of the energy transition, we created the Forum of CEOs of APPO NOCs, the Forum of APPO Directors of Oil and Gas Research, Development and Innovation Institutions and the Forum of APPO Member Countries Oil and Gas Training Institutions. Our ultimate objective is to have regional centers of excellence in the various sectors of the oil and gas industry. This is because we have come to recognize that it does not make sense for each of our countries to aim to be centers of excellence in the various sectors of the industry. Individually, none of our countries has all it takes to successfully address all the three challenges that we face. But pooling our resources together, we have all it takes to do so. The first regional centers of excellence can be replicated with time.
- On energy markets, it is important to understand that the provision of energy infrastructure is a major pre-requisite for the development of energy markets, whether at national, regional or continental level. Sadly for Africa, for the nearly 100 years that we have been producing oil and gas, our focus has been to produce for export. Hence, we never developed national, regional or continental energy infrastructure which would have created home grown market for our energy. Instead, we were made to erroneously believe that our people are too poor to buy energy, so we produce energy for those who can afford it while we abandon our own people to wallow in energy poverty. And because they are too poor to buy energy, they are condemned to perpetual poverty because there is no society that has broken from the poverty or underdevelopment cycle without making energy accessible and affordable to a vast majority of its people. The other possible reason is that having gotten used to receiving dollars from oil and gas exports with which we satisfy the conspicuous lifestyles of our elites, we have found it difficult to prioritize energy access to a vast majority of our people over other peoples.
- Your Excellencies ladies and gentlemen, APPO is today focused on creating an integrated regional and continental energy market. To create energy markets, we need to first create adequate national, cross border, regional and interregional energy infrastructure – pipelines, depots, storage facilities, terminals etc. This is where non-oil nor gas producing countries come in. They participate as transit countries or facilitators for energy market integration. In doing so, they also benefit from the energy that passes through their territories, tapping from it to energize their national economies and lift their people from poverty.
- In this respect, I would like to say that one of the projects we are currently working on, in partnership with the Central Africa Business Energy Forum, CABEF, is the Central Africa Pipeline System, CAPS. It is a comprehensive pipeline system that aims to link 11 Central African states by crude oil, products and gas pipelines. I am pleased to say that just two weeks ago, in Libreville, Gabon, the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa States (CEMAC) Secretariat approved the CAPS projects to be on the agenda of the next CEMAC Heads of States Summit. The project has gotten the endorsement of many CEMAC Heads of State.
- I would like to respectfully recognize the visionary role of two great Africans in this revolutionary project – His Excellency Bruno Jean Richard Itoua, Minister of Hydrocarbons of the Republic of Congo and incoming President of APPO, and also HE Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, immediate past minister of Hydrocarbons and also immediate past minister of Finance, Economy and Planning of APPO Member Country, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and now Chairman of the CAPS Strategic Partnership and Funding Committee.
- Finally on financing the industry in view of the funding challenges posed to the continent by the energy transition, I am pleased to announce that between the last time I stood here and spoke about the Africa Energy Bank and today we have made unprecedented progress in our march towards the establishment of the AEB. A year ago, when I stood here to speak, we were still negotiating the Establishment Documents of the Bank – the Establishment Agreement, the Charter and the Draft Host Country Agreement. Between then and today, we have been able to finalize the Establishment Documents. We have been able to get the Establishment Agreement to go into force as an International Treaty, having got the minimum number of sovereign countries to sign and ratify the Establishment Agreement. Nigeria is the latest APPO Member Country to sign and ratify the Establishment Agreement, on 24th October 2024, with the Republic of Ghana having done so earlier.
- Beyond having the required number of sovereigns ratify the treaty establishing the Bank, we have also been able to take a decision on the Host Country of the Headquarters of the Bank. We have acquired a Headquarters building, compliments of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and finishing touches are being put to the building to enable a handover before the end of the year, according to HE Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
- Thirdly, we have been able to raise some 50% of the minimum capital we need to get the Bank started. It is interesting to note that this amount was raised even before we had been able to complete the other requirements for the take-off of the Bank. This is evidence of the commitment of our Member countries to the success of the Bank. And since the Establishment Documents were signed and the Headquarters decided, the interest in becoming one of the founding shareholders of the Bank has increased tremendously.
- We have hired a consultancy firm to assist us with project management for the take-off of the Bank, hopefully in the first quarter of 2025.
- Before I conclude, I would like report on assignment that Minister Mantashe, Minister Gabriel and Minister Itoua gave to me as APPO SG at this very forum some two years ago. The assignment was also discussed at the APPO Ministerial Council and I have reported the outcome to my bosses. But because the assignment was first given to me here in Cape Town, at AEW, and knowing that most delegates shared the position of the APPO Ministers, I thought it right to give you an update.
- Two years ago, APPO Ministerial Council had frowned at the proliferation of energy events at the same place within short period of each other, with each event organizer inviting APPO ministers, CEOs of NOC and other key industry players to those events which sometimes were held a couple of weeks apart. APPO Secretariat was directed to bring an end to that.
- After long negotiations among they key players in Cape Town, namely AEW with who APPO has been a partner from the beginning and AOW, I am pleased to say that we have succeeded in accomplishing the task given to us. Africa Oil Week held its last event in Cape Town last month. It is now moving to Accra from 2025. AEW remains in Cape Town. Please join me in appreciating my brothers NJ Ayuk and Paul Sinclair for their understanding and support.
- The APPO Ministerial Council has also approved that the African Petroleum Congress and Exhibition, CAPE, which APPO has organized on rotational basis among its Member Countries since 2003 be now held on rotation among the subregions of the continent and to be truly Pan-African. It is going to be different from other energy events in the sense that it shall focus on how Africa is practically addressing the identified challenges of the oil and gas industry in Africa. Its exhibitions shall focus on oil and gas research, development and innovations carried out on the continent. It shall focus on energy infrastructure projects planned and on-going. The CAPE shall be an inclusive event bringing together all key stakeholders. The full modalities for the organization of the new CAPE is still being worked out. But it promises to be Africa’s version of the OTC.
- I thank you all for your kind attention.