Premier Invest’s Deal Room Changing the Game in African Energy Financing

By Boris Esono Nwenfor

René Awambeng, Founder and Managing Partner of Premier Invest, aims to transform Africa's oil, gas, and power sectors — not with speeches or panels, but with real deals that move capital and create impact.

The second edition of the Deal Room was in full swing during the Congo Energy and Invest Forum, which ran from March 24-26 in Brazzaville. The platform is drawing global attention for creating a direct bridge between project developers and financiers in Africa’s oil, gas, and power sectors.

“Premier Invest, developed the concept of a deal room on the sidelines of energy conferences and forums to make sure that actual deals are done,” said René Awambeng, Founder and Managing Partner of Premier Invest.

“People don't just go to conferences to network. The deal room is an opportunity for sponsors, investors, bankers, and companies to showcase their transactions in the oil, gas, and power section that they are developing and that require financing M&A activity on the continent.”

The event in Brazzaville gathered players from across the Central African oil landscape, including companies from Congo, Angola, Gabon, Chad, Cameroon, and the wider Gulf of Guinea. Many of these actors are seeking partnerships, financing, or technical expertise to move their energy initiatives forward.

“Whether it’s pre-export financing, mergers and acquisitions, or infrastructure partnerships, the Deal Room is designed to facilitate and close actual transactions,” Awambeng explained.

African Solutions to African Challenges

Awambeng, a passionate advocate for local empowerment, challenges the widely held belief that Africa lacks the capital or structure to finance its energy future. He draws a sharp contrast to global examples, referencing the United States, the world’s most indebted nation according to Awambeng, which recently raised $5 billion in a single day through a unique gold card scheme.

“The US Commerce Secretary announced that under the US government scheme, they raised $5 billion in one day by selling 1000 gold cards. It is possible for us in Africa to find African solutions and raise funding to solve our problems,” Awambeng said.

“The first thing will be to create the right enabling environment to attract those investors to come to invest in oil and gas transactions on the continent. We need to have bankable transactions. We need to have the right infrastructure. We need to have the right governance. We need to have transparent procedures and processes for getting transactions. We need to attract local capital. There's a lot of reliance on international partners, IOCs on funding.”

Premier Invest works directly with African governments, national oil companies, and regulatory bodies to help shape such environments. The firm is currently advising on Congo’s licensing round and investor roadshow, which seeks to unlock new exploration opportunities in the country.

The Missing Link

Awambeng believes Africa must also embrace more advanced financial tools such as hedging to manage interest rate fluctuations and commodity price volatility. “We need to see more Africans in the market risk business, which is hedging, to be able to hedge against future interest rates or future price risks of volatility of the oil and gas businesses that they do.”

Premier Invest is also involved in major logistics planning, including the development of a pipeline project linking Pointe Noire, Brazzaville, and Kinshasa, aimed at reducing fuel transportation costs across the region.

In the oil services space, Premier Invest is championing SME participation, helping small and medium-sized businesses plug into service contracts with larger operators — a move seen as essential for building local content and sustainable growth.

With its Deal Room concept, Premier Invest is not just making deals — it is reshaping the way Africa approaches energy financing, creating platforms where ideas are matched with funding and where projects meet expertise.

“This is a journey,” said Awambeng. “This journey might start by advising them about the regulatory environment, helping them with technical analysis, helping them with financial analysis, helping them with environmental analysis to make sure that they comply with rules, helping them attract the right technology, helping them attract the right expertise in terms of capacity to make sure that we have the right people who can help you to implement such projects, people who have got a track record and also finding partners.”