Africa is Ripe for Investments in Oil and Gas – APPO SG Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim

By Ajong Mbapndah L

The current energy crisis in the world has underlined the global economy’s dependence on fossil fuels, and many European countries have turned to Africa to deliver. And Africa stands ready to deliver. Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary-General of the African Petroleum Producers Organization, APPO, says Africa is ripe for necessary support, and investment in the oil and gas industry.

"With the climate change issue, we have come to realize that our salvation lies in coming together as a continent to pursue what we believe is in the best interest of our continent. There is now today a lot of collaboration, cooperation, and working together among our oil and gas operators, Dr Omar Farouk, the former General Manager, and later Group General Manager of the group Public Affairs Division, at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC said.

For Dr Omar Ibrahim Farouk, Africa will not be coerced into abandoning the exploration of oil and gas at once pursuant to the needs of external powers. “ Given  Africa’s “peculiar situation in terms of socio-economic development, and the fact that the problems of climate change were caused, not by us but by the economically advanced countries of the world using fossil fuels, calling us to join the same speedy train to net-zero is unfair and punitive,” Dr Farouk says

You are currently in Calgary, Canada for the World Petroleum Congress, may we know the specific message that you brought to the World Petroleum Congress from Africa?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : We want the world to know that Africa is ripe for necessary support, and investment in the oil and gas industry. We are charting our course and we are looking for partners that will come with us on this drive towards ensuring that Africa can fight the energy poverty that has gotten hold of our continent for so long.

We understand that Africa has been trying to make the world see its point of view when it comes to issues of fossils, may we know what progress you see in the world trying to understand the position that Africa is coming from?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : I think a lot has changed in the last two years in terms of the global perception of Africa's position on the energy transition. This is due to several reasons, one of which is the crisis between Russia and Ukraine where countries in the past were telling us to stop investing in oil and gas came back to say we need to invest in oil and gas.

What that message sends to us, and the world, is that the world is not ready for the speed at which we are being asked to move away from fossil fuels. At the moment, we believe that all forms of energy need to be mobilized to conquer energy poverty across the world.

When we talk about energy, a lot of times, Africa looks towards the external world. How much cooperation are we seeing in the continent amongst African countries?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : For the first fifty to seventy years of our participation in the oil and gas industry, exploring, producing and so on of oil, each African country had tended to look to Europe or America. There wasn’t that cooperation and collaboration amongst African countries in developing this industry. With the climate change issue, we have come to realize that our salvation lies in coming together as a continent to pursue what we believe is in the best interest of our continent. There is now today a lot of collaboration, cooperation, and working together among our oil and gas operators.

At one of the side events, you talked about the African Energy Bank, can you reiterate the progress that has been made and the challenges encountered? At what point do we see the bank funding projects on the continent?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : The idea of the Africa Energy Bank came out in May last year when the Ministerial council of APPO, directed the SG and the Managing Director of the African Investment Cooperation, the financial arm of APPO, to negotiate with Afriximbank on the founding of the bank. For one year plus, we have been discussing and negotiating and we have come to an end. This is in the sense that we have been able to agree on the charter of the bank, and we are now looking into the host country agreement. We believe that by the next Ministerial Meeting of APPO scheduled for November, in Cotonou, this will be presented to our ministerial council for consideration and approval.

Thereafter, we decide on the country that is going to host the headquarters and several countries have already been mobilized towards raising the funds for the bank. Afriximbank will put money upfront and we are going to raise money from our governments, national oil compares and other sovereign and private investors from our member countries.

As part of your trip, you were at the University of Calgary where you toured their infrastructure and laboratories, what inspiration came out from that for you?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : We were impressed with what we saw. One of the biggest challenges of the industry on the African continent is that of technology. Our visit to see what the University of Calgary and other institutions are doing in the oil and gas industry in Canada was inspirational and I can tell you they have gone very far. These are the kinds of institutions we would like to partner with to establish oil and gas excellence on the continent.

We believe they have what it takes to do that, and we believe that they share our vision of the future of the oil and gas industry. We will be happy to partner with them to establish regional centres of excellence across the African continent.

Dr Farouk is serving a second term as SG of APPO, may we know some of the success stories you have had and how you envisage the next few years?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : I believe one of the things I have been very happy with is the expression of serious commitment by our member countries to the growth and collaborations amongst our member countries. If you look at what is taking place now at the Forum of CEOs of National Oil Companies of APPO, you will see that attendance at meetings is ninety-something per cent; we have 16 Deputy CEOs attending meetings of the CEOs of APPO member countries. This was never the case in the past. We also have a forum for research training institutions; participation has also been very good, and the same for the ministerial meetings. We are happy with what is happening, and I can say that there is a lot of commitment from our member countries to solidify the successes that we have made.

From Calgary, what next for APPO in the coming months?

Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim : From here we are going back to Brazzaville, and we are going to prepare for our next ministerial meeting. Before them, we have the African Roundtable on Local Content taking place in Nigeria and another seminar on training for the oil and gas industry and immediately after that we will go to Cotonou for the Statutory Meeting of APPO, where our long-term strategy committee, the executive board and ministerial council will meet to review what we have done in the last year and approve what we plan to do next year.

*Culled From The October Issue of PAV Magazine.