By Wallace Mawire*
President Emmerson Mnangagwa heads to Cape Town to keynote African Energy Week 2025, underlining Harare’s push to showcase its untapped energy potential. The AEW forum which is running from 29 September to 3 October is Africa’s premier energy investment summit that provides the stage for Zimbabwe’s leader to pitch the country’s emerging oil, gas and power projects to global investors and financiers. Zimbabwe’s energy minister and industry officials say Mnangagwa’s participation signals an “ambition to unlock the full potential” of Zimbabwe’s energy sector, as foreign firms advance gas and renewable projects in the country. Even the African Energy Chamber’s chairman NJ Ayuk calls Zimbabwe “a prime example of a frontier energy market with significant potential,” noting that projects in gas, coal and hydropower make the nation “ripe for investment”.
Frontier Gas: The Cabora Bassa Project
Until recently, Zimbabwe was not an oil- or gas-producing country. That changed with Invictus Energy’s exploration in the Cabora Bassa rift basin. In 2023 and 2024 Invictus drilled two wells in the northern basin (Mukuyu-1 and Mukuyu-2), each yielding substantial natural gas and condensate discoveries. Those finds among the largest in Sub‑Saharan Africa that year thrust Zimbabwe onto the continent’s gas map. Harare quickly moved to capitalize: the government is finalizing a Petroleum Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with Invictus and has granted the Cabora Bassa project National Project Status (NPS), unlocking duty exemptions and expedited permitting. Under NPS, the project gains fiscal incentives and fast-tracked access to infrastructure and services. A third high-impact well (Musuma-1) is slated for late 2025, targeting new plays that could vastly expand the basin’s resource base.
This exploration success has attracted deep-pocketed backers. In August 2025 Qatar’s Al Mansour Holdings took a 19.9% stake in Invictus and pledged up to US$500 million to develop Cabora Bassa. The strategic deal came with a joint venture (Al Mansour Oil & Gas) aimed at acquiring energy assets across Africa. Invictus’s managing director, Scott Macmillan, hailed the Qatari funding as a game-changer: “The Qatari investment significantly enhances the growth trajectory for our Cabora Bassa Project,” he said. Sheikh Mansour bin Jabor Al Thani, whose family office led the investment, framed it as part of a continent-wide vision: “Our investment in Invictus and our new AMOG joint venture reflects our long-term commitment to Africa’s growth, energy security and economic transformation,” he said. Such endorsements underscore Zimbabwe’s new profile as a “frontier oil and gas market” not because production is proven, but because the potential is now being tested.
Diversifying Power Supply: Coal, Hydro and Sun
Zimbabwe’s conventional power sector remains dominated by coal and hydro, but generation has long fallen short of demand. The country typically relies on the 750MW Kariba hydro plant shared with Zambia and coal-fired stations at Hwange and elsewhere. Under Mnangagwa, coal output is rising projected +10.5% in 2025 and Harare has joined with Zambia to restart idled coal-power plants. Meanwhile new hydropower projects are in the pipeline: planned works at the historic Lake Mutirikwi dam, the ambitious Batoka Gorge project on the Zambezi, and smaller schemes like the Osborne Dam mini-hydro will together boost generation capacity. These investments aim to blunt Zimbabwe’s chronic power shortages, which have hobbled industry and commerce.
In renewable energy, Mnangagwa has placed a special emphasis on solar. In May 2025 he inaugurated the 100MW Melfort Solar Power Plant just outside Harare, Zimbabwe’s largest solar park to date built to “alleviate the nation’s energy crisis”. The government has set an ambitious goal of adding 1,000MW of solar to the grid, and Melfort is meant as the cornerstone of that strategy. Praising solar as Zimbabwe’s “most cost-effective” energy source, Mnangagwa announced plans for another 200MW plant at Chinhoyi. He has said the administration will incentivize green power: tax breaks and duty exemptions have been rolled out for renewable projects echoing the fiscal support given to Cabora Bassa. These moves indicate a pragmatic shift: after decades of focus on diesel generators and aging coal units, Harare is betting that sun and rain can help balance the grid.
Regional Integration and Investment Drive
Synchronized with these domestic moves is a push for regional energy integration. Zimbabwe imports oil products via Mozambique’s pipeline network and is tied into the Southern African Power Pool. In April 2025 Mozambique’s Companhia do Pipeline Moçambique-Zimbabwe (CPMZ) announced it will upgrade the Beira-to-Harare fuel pipeline from 3 to 5 million cubic meters per year by 2027. This expansion will ease fuel supply to Zimbabwe and its neighbors. As outgoing chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) (Aug 2024–25), Mnangagwa repeatedly championed cross-border links in energy and infrastructure. At AEW he is expected to press this collaborative agenda: African Energy Chamber organizers note that forums like AEW “connect [projects] with the capital and expertise needed for development” across the continent.
Mnangagwa’s presence at AEW is also meant to signal Zimbabwe’s readiness for deals. Organizers expect his appearance to draw “strong interest from investors, financiers and technology companies” scouting opportunities in Southern Africa. Indeed, Ayuk and others emphasize that as Africa’s energy demand grows, frontier markets like Zimbabwe “will play an instrumental part in the next era of development”. In practice, this means Zimbabwe is pitching both upstream and downstream projects at AEW from gas field development to pipelines, power plants and renewables. Government officials will be on hand alongside private developers, aiming to secure partnerships that transfer technology, capital and know-how into Zimbabwe’s lagging sectors.
Challenges and the Road Ahead
Despite the optimism, serious hurdles remain. Decades of economic instability mean Zimbabwe lacks deep pockets and has a spotty business climate. Currency gyrations, debt burdens and governance concerns make big oil-and-gas projects difficult. Analysts warn that “turning exploration success into production” will depend on clearing these roadblocks. “Zimbabwe has frontier-level opportunity, but also frontier-level risk,” notes an industry adviser. High upfront costs, infrastructure gaps and financing constraints still loom large.
Yet Mnangagwa has styled himself as Zimbabwe’s chief dealmaker. He frequently touts new dams, highways and solar schemes in speeches, framing them as engines of jobs and growth. At AEW he will try to translate that rhetoric into commitments. As one invited banker put it, the conference is a chance for Zimbabwe to prove it is “open for business” in energy. If investors buy in to his pitch, which stresses incentives and a mandate for reform then Zimbabwe’s energy sector could indeed turn a corner. As Ayuk has urged, international capital should “seize the opportunity” to partner in Zimbabwe’s transformation.
President Mnangagwa is betting heavily that Zimbabwe’s rich but undeveloped oil, gas and power resources will finally fuel a turnaround. Whether AEW 2025 delivers contracts and cash will show if the promise can overcome the peril. In Mnangagwa’s calculus, electrifying Zimbabwe’s growth is not only political priority, but potentially an answer to the country’s enduring crisis of power and poverty.
*Culled from September Edition of PAV Magazine
