[OPINION] Why We Need African Energy Banks Now

For over a year, the African Energy Chamber has been pushing back against steadily building pressure to halt new foreign investments in Africa’s oil and gas industry.

To prevent catastrophic climate change, environmental organizations, financial organizations, and governments across Europe and North America have insisted that developing nations, including those in Africa, must immediately transition from fossil fuel production and usage to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydrogen.

Mind you, the majority of those making these demands are based in industrialized nations that were built on fossil fuels — oil and gas-fueled their economic engines — yet they are unwilling to allow less-developed nations to use fossil fuels to the same end.

Even more troubling, the African countries these groups are taking aim at have a wealth of natural resources under their feet, resources that can be used to deliver reliable power, to grow economies, and to build a better future.

These are a few of the reasons that the Secretary-General of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization, Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, has rightly pointed out that it would be a mistake for Africans to abandon their abundant petroleum resources.

Turning our backs on approximately 130 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and over 15 trillion standard cubic meters of natural gas, to pursue expensive, unreliable energy sources, would not be a wise course of action.

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The African Energy Chamber has stated, over and over, that Africa still needs its oil and gas sector. And, the body has tried to explain the important role that international oil companies (IOCs), foreign governments, and investment institutions play in building the kind of oil and gas sector that will truly benefit Africans.

IOCs, for example, engage in knowledge sharing and provide opportunities for Africans to build valuable job skills. What’s more, foreign oil and gas investments generate revenue that can be used to build and improve energy infrastructure — for both fossil fuels and renewables. And, by supporting natural gas projects, investors create a path for gas-to-power projects that help minimize the continent’s widespread energy poverty.

In July 2021, when it became apparent that reasoning was not yielding results, the chamber went so far as to employ the same tactics the international community used against our members. It called for boycotts against financial institutions that discriminated against the African oil and gas industry.

But the calls to stop financing African oil and gas have only grown louder and more insistent. Most recently, during the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, more than 20 countries and financial institutions pledged to stop public financing for overseas fossil fuel projects.

For those of us who care about Africa’s oil and gas industry, it’s time to face facts: We need to find a way to save it ourselves. The African Energy Chamber is calling upon African states and the private sector to establish energy banks focused on funding African energy projects.

The idea is to create funding sources for all types of African energy — from oil and gas exploration to solar and hydrogen operations — that will not depend on foreign support. No more begging for aid that only would be awarded on the condition that we abandon fossil fuels.

We can do this, and we must. Too much is at stake. We can’t afford not to capitalize on such recent discoveries as the light oil found offshore Angola, the oil in Namibia’s Kavango Basin, the shale gas in South Africa’s Karoo Basin, or the oil and natural gas off the coast of Côte d’Ivoire. Those are only a few of the important discoveries that occurred in 2021, and each represents critical opportunities for everyday Africans.

Pressing Needs Call for Definitive Action

The call for Africa to save its oil and gas industry alive is not based on greed, on making money for an elite few. We’re not placing economic objectives above our people or the climate.

On the contrary, we are convinced that harnessing our oil and gas is the best way to meet some of our people’s most pressing needs. And we believe that pursuing our oil and gas opportunities is not the environmental catastrophe that some have suggested it is.

As OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo ha