JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, January 22, 2024/ -- The African Energy Chamber (AEC) – the voice of Africa’s energy sector – signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding with the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO) in Brazzaville on Tuesday. Under the agreement, the two parties pledge to work together to improve Africa’s energy security, drive local content and ensure that African companies develop capabilities to become world class operators undertaking ever bigger projects in Africa’s oil and gas and energy sector.

Barely over half Africa’s population have access to power. Very often, this access is unreliable and unaffordable. The remainder of over 600 million have no access to power with even more, an estimated 900 million lacking access to clean cooking fuels.

The AEC and APPO jointly recognize Africa’s ever-increasing demand for energy and ultimately recognize, that attempts to satisfy this demand adequately will have to be via the development of local and regional capacity. African private sector companies will have to increase their abilities to generate the necessary investments needed, as well as procure the required technologies and know-how to take on larger oil and gas and energy projects on the continent. Ultimately, the work of producing more energy in Africa should not be left solely to international and National Oil Companies.

The agreement enables the AEC to collaborate with APPO to enhance Africa’s energy industry by promoting local and Africa content development, intra-African energy trade, technology-focused investments and partnership opportunities across the oil and gas sector.

The African Energy Chamber strongly believes in the potential of the private sector to mobilize the necessary resources to address the challenges in the oil and gas and energy sector that we see in Africa. However, governments across the continent must double their efforts to provide the private sector, both international and local investors with an enabling environment.

The African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO), headed by His Excellency Dr Omar Farouk Ibrahim was founded in 1987 and has as principal objective, the fostering of cooperation in the field of hydrocarbons of its 18 Member Countries and other global institutions in a bid to promote the utilization of petroleum for energy security and sustainable development.

“The Chamber is honored to partner with APPO – an African-led organization that serves as a vital platform for cooperation, harmonization and collaboration – to advance Africa’s oil and gas and energy industry. We are committed to driving new deals, projects and partnerships that position local content and energy security as the highest priorities, as well as ensuring that African policymakers, explorers, service providers and financial institutions lead the dialogue at Africa Energy Week 2024 (AEW 2024) and beyond,” stated NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the AEC.