Af r ica is set to become increasingly inf luential in shaping global energy trends over the next few years, considering its vast natural resources.But the continent has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and recovery will take time.According to the African Energy Chamber’s latest State of Africa Energy 2022 repor t, Cov id-19 and the subsequent disruption to global markets is estimated to have wiped out close to $150 billion of exploration and development expenditure from Africa between 2020 and 2025.“Over the last 12 to 15 months, more companies, and especially majors, have announced strategic revisions, with increased focus on the energy transition, cutting down their carbon emissions and in doing so reducing respective upstream expenditure going forward.”Whilst there was no denying that the continent would experience some challenges in the years ahead, the report does forecast a resurgence of pre-Covid investments in the overall energy sector by 2023/24. Roelof van Tonder, director market insight and development at Africa House, says they are encouraged by the interest and ongoing activity in oil and gas projects on the continent, involving some of the world’s biggest players.“ We a re especially excited about the prospect of several projects reaching FID in 2022, including the Mozambique LNG projects and some in Uganda,” he said. “There is a lot of activity happening in the oil and gas sector at present that bodes well for the long-term outlook of the continent.”The Lake Albert region in Uganda, with its major oil and gas resources estimated at over one billion barrels, is one of the areas of focus at present.The Tilenga project, operated by TotalEnergies, and Kingfisher by CNOOC, both offer opportunity, according to Van Tonder, supported by the third project – the development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop). It will run 1 450km from the shores of Lake Albert on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Tanzania to the Port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean.According to Van Tonder, hopes are high for Tilenga, which is considered the centrepiece of oil projects in the Lake Albert Basin. With its six oil fields and expected 426 oil wells at full production, it is projected to bring investments of over $10bn to Uganda and Tanzania.Another project to keep an eye on is the upgrading of the Tazama pipeline, a 1 710km long crude oil pipeline which runs from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Ndola in Zambia. Tazama intends to construct a 1 105km gas pipeline from Dar es Salaam to Chinzali in Zambia, as well as a 350MW power station facility to produce electricity to Zambia.In Mozambique, several LNG projects impacted by an outbreak of violence earlier this year, are expected to get back on track in 2022.In other areas on the continent Libya has announced its potential to increase oil production to around 1.6m barrels per day by mid-2022, and Tanzania is working on a $30bn LNG project. Nigeria is set to complete the first and second phases of the Dangote Oil Refinery projects, and Angola’s Zinia Phase 2 development project will up its production capacity next year.
