Africa must raise more than 200 billion dollars every year in energy investment by 2030 if it is to develop oil and gas, expand electricity generation and distribution, and grow clean energy, Independent Petroleum Producers Group Chairman Adegbite Falade has said.
Speaking yesterday at the opening of Africa Oil Week in Accra, Ghana, Falade told the gathering that the continent currently attracts just over half of the money it needs. Africa, he noted, holds about one fifth of the world’s population yet draws only about three per cent of global energy investment.
If Africa is to secure its energy future while international capital pulls back, he said, the continent must look inward and build its own institutional and financial strength. He pointed to the Africa Energy Bank as central to closing the financing gap, describing its creation by the African Petroleum Producers Organisation and Afreximbank as an important step toward funding Africa’s energy future.
The bank, he said, was built to fill the upstream and midstream financing hole left by traditional global lenders. In his words, it is Africa’s clearest signal yet that the continent intends to finance its own hydrocarbon future rather than wait indefinitely for others.
He pressed African producers to originate high impact, bankable projects and called for heavier investment in gas infrastructure. Natural gas already generates around 40 per cent of the continent’s electricity, he said, yet Africa has fewer than 50,000 kilometres of oil and gas trunk pipelines, compared with more than 200,000 kilometres in Europe. Reserves without pipelines, he warned, are stranded molecules that benefit no one.
Former APPO Secretary General Dr Omar Farouk said the Africa Energy Bank is expected to begin operations in October 2026. All hurdles have been cleared, he added, and the bank is close to starting work.
