The African continent is blessed with abundant natural resources including oil and gas. The Continent is home to five of the top thirty (30) oil producers in the world with the leading producer of oil in the Continent coming from West Africa. Nearly half of the countries in West Africa are producing oil and gas, making the sub-region an important hub of this critical sector. These include Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, Guinea and Senegal.
Perhaps the irony of this is that a lot of the countries in the West African sub-region do not have the capacity to exploit these resources by themselves and have had to rely on foreign companies over the years. In Ghana, for instance, our first oil field (the Saltpond field) was discovered by an American company called Signal-Amoco Consortium in the 1970s and several years later, two American Companies (Kosmos Energy and Anardarko) and their partners discovered Ghana’s most prolific oil field (Jubilee Field) and subsequently the TEN Field in a separate Contract Area. In Nigeria, Shell began drilling in 1956, leading to first discovery two years later, whilst Kosmos is actively engaged in Senegal.
”If we in Africa are being told to move in the direction of economic developments through the use of clean and green energy, then those who are speaking should provide the needed capital and partnerships to make it possible .
Dr. Matthew Opoku PrempehAt the Germany-Africa Energy Forum
If we have coal in abundance in Africa, but we can’t use coal in our power sector and we are being told to use clean reliable energy, then those who are professing that should come to the table with the needed investment and partnerships to let Africa develop in that direction.
