Featured, Oil & Gas
By Anthony Isibor
UMAR Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary General African Petroleum Producers Organisation, APPO, has called on energy players and African leaders to ask the hard questions about energy transition and stop accepting the prescriptions given by the developed countries on the issue.
Speaking at the Sub Saharan Africa International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference on Tuesday, Farouk urged African leaders to ask some hard questions like:
“Who are those behind the global shift from fossil to renewable energies?
“At what point did they get to know about the dangers of fossil fuels?
“What are they doing to ensure energy security for their own populations?
“What are they asking us to do to ensure energy security for our own people during the transition and after?
“What are they promising us?
He called on African leaders to critically analyse these questions and stop being gullible by accepting whatever they are told is the solution.
He noted that African leaders must also be original in analysing their situations and “take critical look at where we are today and see if the prescriptions we are getting from the developed world are the cures for our ailments’.
According to him, the answers to these questions will open our eyes to the need for a complete re-evaluation of how best to identify and protect our collective interests as a continent with over 600 million people who have no access to electricity and 900 million, who doesn’t have any form of modern energy.
“Africa needs a new business model to survive the energy transition.
“I am not saying that we can’t make progress; we can. But it will take a much longer time to do that. And in today’s world, particularly in Africa, we are in a hurry, our youths cannot wait for that long in order to see the transformation.
He revealed that the salvation of the African oil and gas industry in this challenging era of energy transition lies in cooperation and collaboration among African States and expressed optimism that the efforts of the organisation in the last couple of years will soon begin to yield positive results.
“Accelerating African Content, which is the theme of this conference, is not an easy task. There are many challenges ranging from running and domesticating the technology in the oil and gas industry to the creation of markets for the oil and gas that we produce different from the traditional markets that we have for decades relied on.
“In the last three years, we have taken major steps to enhance cooperation and collaboration among APPO member countries in the oil and gas sector.
“Two years ago, we inaugurated a forum of CEO’s of APPO NOC’s to provide a platform for our national operators to better appreciate the challenges faced by the industry and possibly work out a solution for them.
“Last year, we inaugurated a forum of directors of training institutions in oil and gas. This year, we are inaugurating the forum of directors of research and development and next on the phase is our drive to build a private sector,” he added.
A.I
Tags: APPO Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim
