The international oil and gas sector is paying increasing attention to Africa’s oil and gas exploration landscape in 2022 and beyond.
With much of the attention of the industry having been focused on oil exploration and recovery in South America, notably, Guyana and Suriname, in recent years, the African Energy Chamber (AEC) said in its 2022 report that the region is now set to move to the centre of the global industry’s attention this year.
Africa, the report said, is seriously seeking to step up exploration activities this year as part of a broader initiative to position the continent to be treated as a global energy hub.
South America, notably Guyana and Suriname, have been enjoying the international oil and gas limelight ever since the 2015 announcement by ExxonMobil that it had struck first oil offshore Guyana. Further, the company had dropped a broad hint that Guyana’s proven reserves could, down the road, position the country as an important player in the global oil and gas industry. Whilst Suriname’s oil recovery ambitions are yet to bear significant fruit, confirmation of that country’s abundant offshore resources in the Guyana/Suriname basin has seen a marked shift in international attention to the oil and gas prospects of the two neighbouring countries going for-ward, and particularly to the weight they can eventually carry in the wider industry.
Africa’s immediate-term aim, according to the recent AEC report, is to increasingly push the envelope on its exploration activities in 2022 in an effort to make a persuasive case for the continent to be seen as a global energy hub. The AEC Q1 2022 outlook noted that “2020 and 2021 had chalked up record low levels of oil production, asserting that underinvestment in exploration apart, Africa’s performance in the oil and gas sector had also been seriously undermined by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic”. The pandemic, it said, had led to delays in the approval of exploration projects. The report also noted that while encouraging discoveries had been made in 2019, the continent’s 2021 30% drop in discovered reserves had proven to be a considerable setback.
With the report seeing 2022 as a much more encouraging year for Africa’s oil and gas sector, there are signs, encouraging ones, that Africa and Guyana could be seeking to work together to bring their respective oil and gas sectors into the global limelight.
The past few months have seen high-level exchanges, including a February visit here by Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo following Vice President Bharratt Jagdeo’s visit to Ghana in 2021.
As of late last year Guyana and Ghana had signed a number of pacts including broad framework agreements on cooperation, and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Minis-try of Natural Resources in Guyana and the Petroleum Commission of Ghana on cooperation in the petroleum sector of Guyana. Further MOUs embrace mutual cooperation in investment promotion between the Guyana Office For Investment and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre.
