The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva has said that for Africa to increase power generation, the continent needs to utilize the abundant hydrocarbon resources it has.
Blueprint reports that Sylva stated this recently, during the Africa Energy Chamber (AEC) Roundtable in Johannesburg, South Africa.

With increasing pressure on international lenders to reduce support for crude oil exploration and production, access to credit facilities has become very challenging, especially for African independent E&P companies. According to the the Minister, homegrown funding model such as the African Energy Bank being proposed by African Petroleum Producers Association (APPO) is needed to support oil and gas industry on the continent.
“We have decided that Africa-based financial institutions such as the African Energy Bank which the African Petroleum Producers Association is working towards will be the ones to fund African energy developments.

“International oil companies are increasing their interest in offshore investment because fiscal terms are attractive. If we keep fiscal terms attractive, we will get more funding from international parties.
“Africa will need to utilize hydrocarbons to generate power. Gas is our choice to produce and increase electricity access. One of the projects we are deploying in Nigeria is a major gas turbine in Abuja, which was previously unthinkable because there was no gas supply.

“In the north, we have a firm seeking to invest in an energy island. The project will transport gas virtually from the south via the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) Natural Gas Pipeline. A lot of industries which had shutdown are now coming back into operation owing to access to gas from the AKK and with gas we will be able to resolve our energy problems.
“We are trying to build more gas turbines, gas grids and pipelines from Nigeria south to Lagos and we are taking these pipelines outside Nigeria. For instance, between Nigeria and Togo, we have a pipeline which we will extend to Morocco to support electricity production. We cannot move quickly to renewables: we are not ready, and we are happy that the world is redefining gas as a clean fuel.
Over the last three years, most of the International Oil Companies (IOCs) in Nigeria have been reluctant to take Final Investment Decision (FID) on key projects. However, Sylva said that with the country’s new oil and gas law (Petroleum Industry Act), Nigeria is ready for investors.

“Unfortunately, now that we are ready, many things including the energy transition are dwindling interest in the oil industry. However, with regulatory institutions enabled by the PIA now in place, we are seeing interest from investors in Nigeria and international firms including Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil who have committed to making additional investments in the offshore sector as some of these firms move away from onshore operations.”