BEING REMARKS DELIVERED BY H.E. DR. OMAR FAROUK IBRAHIM, SECRETARY GENERAL, AFRICAN PETROLEUM PRODUCERS’ ORGANIZATION, APPO, AT THE 2ND OPEC-AFRICA ENERGY DIALOGUE, CAIRO, EGYPT 12 FEBRUARY 2023

Excellency Haitham Al Ghais, Secretary General of OPEC and the Chief Host of the 2^nd OPEC-Africa Energy Dialogue, Excellency Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union, Mr. Anibor Kragha, Executive Secretary of the African Refiners and Distributors’ Association, ARDA, Mr. Rashid Ali Abdalla, Executive Director, AFREC, delegates to the 2^nd OPEC-Africa Energy Dialogue, my old colleagues from the OPEC Secretariat, ladies and gentlemen.

I should like to begin by expressing my personal appreciation and that of APPO to Secretary General HE Haitham Al Ghais and the OPEC Secretariat team for the arrangements made to host this year’s OPEC-Africa Energy Dialogue, initially in Vienna, but later changed to this historic city of Cairo, for the convenience of all. The decision to have a physical meeting, not virtual, as happened in 2021 year is indicative of the increasing commitment that parties to the Dialogue have developed in the short time that the Dialogue has been established.

I should also like to thank Her Excellency Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid for creating time out to make it physically to this Dialogue. APPO appreciates the leadership you have been providing to the energy sector for the African continent, especially in these challenges times. I cant fail to recognize the supportive role of your very able lieutenant and Executive Director of AFREC, Ali Rashid Abdallah.

To my good friend, Mr. Anibor Kragha, the Executive Secretary of ARDA, we thank you for the new insights you have brought to the downstream sector, particularly the refining and petrochemicals sub-sector. Thank you for creating the time during your convalescence to come.

Excellencies, at the inaugural OPEC-Africa Energy Dialogue last year, I had posited that the establishment of the OPEC-Africa Energy Dialogue couldn’t have come at a better time. Since then developments in the global energy scene have made that assertion even more true. Since our last Dialogue on June 2, 2021, two Conferences of the Parties have taken place – COP26 in Glasgow and COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. And both re-emphasized the urgency for a concerted commitment to hasten the energy transition.

For us in Africa, the challenge of energy transition is a lot more daunting. A study conducted by APPO on the future of the oil and gas industry in Africa in the light of the energy transition identified three main challenges that African oil and gas producing countries need to urgently address if they are not to lose the 125 billion barrels oil and over 550 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves on the continent. These are the challenges of financing, technology and markets.

The study noted that for the nearly 100 years that Africa has been producing oil and gas, most African countries have depended heavily on foreign financing for oil and gas projects, upstream, midstream, and downstream. Now that those on whom we have been depending for funds for the industry have resolved not to fund oil and gas projects in Africa anymore, how does Africa plan to cross this hurdle?

The challenge with technology is not much different. International Oil Companies, IOCs and international oil service companies have led the technology path for us. All the key oil ang gas research institutions are outside Africa. How does Africa plan to take charge of the industry in the absence of these providers?

Finally, the oil and gas industry in Africa was developed essentially for the use of others, even when our own people needed it more than those others. About 70% of the crude oil we produce is exported from Africa. The figure is less for gas at 40%. Even if we are able to produce the oil and gas where do we get the market?

These are some of the imminent challenges that the energy transition pose to our continent and to our peoples.

At APPO we have taken practical steps to address these challenges. But we admit that we can do much better with collaboration from other sister organization like OPEC. We are already working with sister organizations on the continent, AFREC and ARDA.

To address the funding challenge, the APPO Ministerial Council last year passed a resolution that APPO and Afreximbank partner to establish the Africa Energy Bank. A Working Group from the two institutions, with the support of external consultants, is about finalizing the establishment documents of the bank. Our target is to have the bank operational this year. I will discuss more about this bank later.

Similarly, for technology, APPO is currently evaluating the oil and gas research, development, innovation, and training centers in selected Member Countries with a view to identifying those that could be upgraded and designated as APPO Centers of Excellence in Oil and Gas.

And for the market, we are promoting the development of key energy infrastructure across the continent with a view to facilitating the movement of energy from areas of abundance to areas of need. In this regard, we are working with the Central Africa Business Energy Forum, CABEF, on the Central Africa Pipeline System, that shall pass through 11 countries in the central Africa sub-region. This is in addition to supporting the development of the Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline Project and the extension of the West Africa Gas Pipeline.

We look forward to greater cooperation and collaboration with OPEC, whose destiny is linked to ours in the sense that a majority of OPEC Members are also APPO Members.

Often times I am asked why create APPO when more than half of OPEC members belong to Africa. Why not use OPEC as vehicle to pursue Africa’s objectives. The answer I give is that there are general challenges that all oil and gas producers face, and they need to come together to find solutions to them. But there are also challenges that are peculiar to the African oil and gas industry. We cannot impose those challenges on others. But we can cooperate and collaborate with them in the search for solutions.