Page 5 - AfrOil Week 46 2019

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil
 African producers appear to disagree, though. Indeed, some of them have expressed adamant support for fossil fuel production over renewa- ble energy projects – and have criticised those who call for moving away from hydrocarbons.
“Not negotiable”
This stance was much in evidence at the Africa Oil Week (AOW) conference in Cape Town ear- lier this month.
For Gwede Mantashe, South Africa’s Min- ister of Mineral Resources and Energy, renew- ables do not yet compare favourably to oil and gas. Renewable energy projects have very seri- ous drawbacks, in that they are typically more expensive than fossil fuel initiatives and are not always in line with producer states’ other goals, he said.
“We have set a number of objectives, and one is a security of supply,” he told Platts on the sidelines of AOW. “That is what we need for the economy to pump ... That objective is not negotiable.”
He added: “We want to supply energy at a cost-effective level because if it is too expensive, I can tell you that it becomes a ‘nice-to-have’ but people do not access it.”
Mantashe also said at the conference that Africa’s need for energy was so pressing that it outweighed other considerations.
“Energy is the catalyst for growth. They even want to tell us to switch off all the coal-generated power stations. Until you tell them, ‘You know, we can do that, but you’ll breathe fresh air in the darkness.’”
No apologies
Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Equatorial Guin- ea’s Minister of Mines, Industry and Energy, spoke even more emphatically, saying that oil and gas represented African countries’ best
hopes of creating new jobs and encouraging economic development.
“Under no circumstances are we going to be apologising [for developing fossil fuels] ... [If there is] anybody out of the continent saying we should not develop those fields, that is criminal. It is very unfair,” he asserted.
Gabriel Mboumba, Gabon’s Minister for Hydrocarbons, summed up the issue neatly. He described oil and gas as assets and major con- tributors to development. “We will do all in our power to develop it,” he declared.
“Bright and robust”
In a paper presented at the Abu Dhabi Inter- national Petroleum Exhibition Conference (ADIPEC), Ewubare acknowledged the impor- tance of environmental considerations. “The conversation here was about the transition to a greener future, as it were. Nigeria is a country of over 200mn people, and whatever we do has an impact in Africa and the rest of the world,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, he said, extractive industries are not in imminent danger of dying.
“Yes, there will be some regions that will migrate towards renewables. But don’t forget that growth in terms of absolute numbers and economic expansion comes primarily from Asia and Africa. In [the] long term, those areas are not where the use of electric vehicles has gotten close to significant levels,” he said. “So I have no worry about the future of oil. It is bright and robust.” ™
Sentiments such as these have also been on
display beyond the AOW conference. Roland “ Ewubare, the chief operating officer of Nigerian
National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), asserted
earlier this week that oil and gas would remain
important for a long time yet – especially in
developing countries.
Extractive industries are not in imminent danger of dying
PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
ONHYM chief: Morocco remains committed to proposed Atlantic gas pipeline
MOROCCO/NIGERIA
AMINA Benkhadra, the head of Morocco’s national oil company (NOC), said last week that the Moroccan government remained commit- ted to the construction of the Atlantic pipeline, which will pump natural gas from Nigeria to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaking at the second Nigeria-Morocco Business Forum last week, Benkhadra said her company, Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM), saw the project as a strategic priority. The Atlantic pipeline has the potential to foster regional integration in West Africa and increase African gas exports to Europe, she said.
The scheme will also have a positive socio-economic impact on the region, she added. It will help Nigeria, Morocco and all of the transit countries involved by creating jobs and encouraging investment, she said. Addition- ally, it will facilitate the creation of a competitive regional electricity market, she commented.
Abuja and Rabat struck an agreement on the Atlantic pipeline project in late 2016, when Morocco’s King Mohammed VI was paying a state visit to the Nigerian capital. At that time, the two sides said that they wanted to build a wide-ranging pipeline network capable of serv- ing 16 countries.
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