Boosting African Energy: APPO to Invest $5 Billion in African Energy Bank

The African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO) recently announced that it has decided to give funding of five billion dollars to the development of an African Energy Bank (AEB) to develop all oil and gas assets across oil-producing member countries.

The Secretary of APPO, Dr Omar Ibrahim revealed that the bank will be established with the collaboration of Afreximbank. 

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Dr Omar Ibrahim disclosed this at a news conference held at the ongoing 24th World Petroleum Congress(WPC) on Monday in Calgary, Canada.

Omar explained that the establishment of the bank would solve issues revolving around funding oil and gas projects.

He further stated that the AEB will help cover the gap if foreign countries from other countries stop funding the oil and gas industry here in Africa.

According to NAN, Ibrahim said that the establishment of the bank will assist investors who think Africa needs all forms of available energy for the future to eradicate poverty in the continent.

He said that the bank will also accommodate other energies in the future. 

He said, 

• We were pleasantly surprised at the level of advancement of many of the institutions visited, in terms of their training programmes, facilities, and equipment as well as faculties.

• We concluded that given the huge financial requirements for establishing high-class oil and gas research and training institutions, APPO member countries need not all establish these institutions.

• Instead, each country can establish institutions for training oil and gas technicians as well as middle-level personnel.

• For the highly skilled sectors, we plan to have regional centers of excellence in the various sectors of the industry.

• In this regard, Sonatrach, the National Oil Company of Algeria hosted the inaugural meeting of Directors of Oil and Gas Research and Training Institutions last June, in Bourmedes, Algeria.

In his statement, he also said that Nigeria would be hosting the second Africa Roundtable on Local Content, while Angola also showed interest in the next one coming in Q1 2024.

• In pursuing this objective, we believe that partnerships with players from technologically advanced countries will be fruitful.

• The oil and gas industry in Canada is one place where we can find technological support.

• Partnership is critical to our success, and we are prepared to partner with all like-minded institutions to pursue our objectives.

Dr Omar Ibrahim also said that APPO is working tirelessly to address the challenges of oil and gas markets and energy infrastructure.

He explained further that the organization is working on creating a blueprint that will work with the integration of the African continent through the establishment of cross-border energy infrastructure.

He said,

• That is why our pipelines run from the fields to the seaports for export.

• The time has come for us to route these pipelines from areas of plenty to areas of need within Africa.

• For too long, we have been told that Africans do not have purchasing power and that our energy needs external markets.

• But we all know that energy is the biggest catalyst for economic development.

• So, if people cannot access energy because they do not have the purchasing power, when will they ever get out of poverty?

He also stated that APPO believes that the establishment of the bank will break the chains of poverty on the continent.

This, he said,

• Deliberate policies must be created to give our people access to energy, and with that, the poverty cycle will be broken.

• Give the people energy not just to light their homes but to start cottage industries, and you will be shocked at the quantum leap in the national Gross Domestic Product.