Yemisi Izuora
Some African ministers will be using Africa Oil Week Summit as a platform to discuss national strategies, sovereign competitiveness, issue licences and finalise tenders.
Seventeen of the ministers from Africa’s largest energy producing nations, including countries such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia among others, have agreed to meet in Cape Town at Africa Oil Week AOW, taking place from 4-8 November 2019 to broker new partnerships for their energy sectors.
The ministers will be using Summit as a platform to discuss national strategies, sovereign competitiveness, issue licences and finalise tenders.
With pressure growing on Sovereigns to develop attractive operating environments, the ministers will be detailing their hydrocarbon strategies to an audience of 1500+ senior executives from the entire upstream value chain, including national oil companies, and international oil companies, Independent Operators, the Geoscience community, Service Companies and EPCs and the investment community.
In 2019, Ministers in attendance will include:
Hon Slim Feriani, Minister of Energy for Tunisia, who will be joining the government speaker line-up for the first time in AOW’s history. Though Tunisia is well known for oil production, Feriani recently announced that the nation is planning to double its gas production this year from 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent to 65,000 when the southern Nawara gas field comes onstream in June. He will be providing more details on the status of Tunisia’s oil and gas resources at AOW 2019.
Irene Muloni, Minister of Energy and Mineral Development for Uganda is billed to attend. In 2018, Uganda hosted a roadshow at AOW to showcase the country’s “proven oil and gas reserves which constitute close to 12 per cent of world oil production”. This year she will be expanding on this theme with an update on the country’s most recent petroleum exploration project.
Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines, Industry & Energy for Equatorial Guinea, will discuss the country’s for its offshore crude oil fields as Equatorial Guinea produces roughly 13.5 million tonnes of crude oil per year, with 149 million tonnes recoverable oil reserves.
Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Nigeria will represent Nigeria which is Africa’s largest oil producer and exporter which also has large gas reserves up for development, attracting interest from local operators such as Seplat and Oando who are sponsoring AOW in 2019.