Since the surging Covid-19 pandemic, Africa’s energy sector has travelled in the direction of the global energy system: Forging a way forward from the usual ways of running the continent’s energy industry. The pandemic helped put in sight the independence that Big petroleum companies had craved for decades, and thus upended the geopolitics of the trade in resources.
Helping to chart a new direction is the African Energy Chamber, whose advice is sought by ministers of oil producing nations and chief executives of multinational energy companies. Through its first-ever advisory board book titled African Energy Road to Recovery: How The African Energy Industry Can Reshape Itself for a post-COVID-19 Comeback, the chamber outlines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and slump in oil prices on the African energy industry and how the sector can prepare for a rebound.
Featuring articles, interviews, debates, and data resources on the current status of Africa’s energy landscape, the advisory book charts a way forward with key participants including Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, Secretary-General of OPEC; Frank Ene, CEO of RoyalGate Energy; Pierre Raillard, Country Director, Morocco Chariot Oil and Gas; Nosizwe Nokwe-Macamo, Executive Chairman and Founder of Raise Africa Investments and Akinwole Omoboriowo II, Chairman, and CEO of Genesis Energy Group. Readers of the advisory book will find some of the new book’s terrain familiar.
Through chapters on local content exploration, natural gas, energy transition and global investment, the book intends to offer a wide view of the current state of the sector and provide a pragmatic roadmap to recovery: “2020 was a tough year for the industry, it required African petroleum producers and local and international investors to re-examine their strategies as a means to navigate through the ever so complex energy landscape,” said NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. “Through conversations with our advisory board members, who are also active players in the global energy sector, we have put together this resource to act as a guide for the private and public sector as they work through this most challenging time. Now is the time to be smart, rethink, make decisions now for the future,” he added.
“The two-pronged crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and the slump in oil prices presented African petroleum producers with unparalleled challenges,” said Mandisa Nduli, Director of Marketing and Communications at the African Energy Chamber. “Having watched the reactions of governments and industry stakeholders in the past year, we felt it was important that we build on the examinations presented in our Africa Energy Outlook report launched in November. The Road to Recovery book is a true depiction of the Chamber’s mission to provide possible solutions to the challenges that continue to undermine Africa s energy sector. This book, as well as the chamber, is solutions-oriented, with the intent of providing practical steps as to how to make energy work for Africa,” she added.
Analyst have acknowledged that the pandemic might inspire a recovery that could accelerate an energy shift, regardless of the staggering amounts of debt governments have taken on to fight Covid-19.
There are few forces stronger than the African Energy Chamber’s belief in the power of innovation and technology to transform and improve Africa’s energy sector. That faith is what animates African Energy Road to Recovery: How The African Energy Industry Can Reshape Itself for a post-COVID-19 Comeback
