By Anthony Ebigie, Accra, Ghana.
Africa’s widening energy investment gap presents one of the continent’s biggest opportunities for global investors, with the continent requiring more than $200 billion annually in energy investment by 2030, according to the Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG), Adegbite Falade.
Falade, who spoke on Africa’s upstream outlook:setting the strategic tone at the opening ceremony of AOW: Energy 2026 in Accra, Ghana, said Africa’s enormous oil and gas resources, expanding domestic energy demand and growing role of indigenous operators offered investors a compelling opportunity to participate in the continent’s next phase of industrialisation.
The theme for AOW:Energy 2026 centers on “Investing in African Natural Resources,” with core discussions directed at accelerating exploration, unlocking upstream partnerships, and aligning policy, infrastructure, and markets.
He, however, warned that the opportunity could be lost unless governments, investors and industry players move urgently to close the continent’s financing and infrastructure deficits.
According to him, Africa holds more than 125 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and over 620 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, representing about nine per cent and eight per cent of global oil and gas reserves respectively.
Yet, the continent attracts only about six per cent of global exploration spending and upstream capital, exposing what Falade described as a huge gap between Africa’s resource endowment and the capital deployed to develop it.
Falade said Africa’s paradox was that it remained simultaneously the world’s most energy-endowed and most energy-poor continent.
Africa produces approximately eight million barrels of crude oil daily but refines barely half that volume, leaving the continent spending more than $60 billion annually on refined fuel imports.
Similarly, while Africa produced about 262 billion cubic metres of gas in 2025, domestic consumption stood at roughly 185 billion cubic metres, meaning a significant portion of the continent’s gas production is exported instead of being deployed to address domestic energy shortages.
The consequence, he said, is an enormous energy-access deficit, with close to 600 million Africans lacking access to electricity.
For global investors, Falade argued, the statistics point not simply to Africa’s challenges but to a sizeable pipeline of potential investment opportunities spanning upstream exploration, gas processing, pipelines, power generation, refining, petrochemicals and renewable energy.
“Reserves without pipelines are simply stranded molecules benefiting no one,” he said, stressing that upstream investment must be matched by investment in midstream infrastructure.
Stressing that Indigenous operators emerges as new investment partners, Falade positioned Nigeria’s indigenous oil and gas companies as evidence that Africa’s energy assets can increasingly be developed by local operators in partnership with international capital, technology and expertise.
He said indigenous Nigerian companies, which accounted for less than three per cent of national production just over three decades ago, now contribute more than half of the country’s crude oil and gas output following the divestment of several onshore and shallow-water assets by international oil companies.
According to him, about 200,000 barrels of oil per day have been added to Nigeria’s national production by just three indigenous operators over the past year
Falade said the transition had demonstrated that indigenous companies could revive mature and previously underperforming assets through technical competence, capital deployment and faster decision-making.
For international investors, he said, the changing ownership structure should be viewed as an opportunity for new partnerships rather than as a retreat from Africa.
“The divestment era is not an exit. It is an invitation to a new kind of partnership — technology, capital and capability alongside local ownership and local urgency,” he said.
He emphasised that a major plank of the IPPG’s investment proposition is the Africa Energy Bank (AEB), established through a partnership between the African Petroleum Producers Organisation and Afreximbank.
Falade said the bank, headquartered in Abuja, has an initial capital base of $5 billion, with an ambition to mobilise up to $10 billion in its first phase and grow towards $15 billion by 2030.
He described the institution as a potentially critical vehicle for bridging the upstream and midstream financing gap created by the retreat of some traditional international financiers from African oil and gas projects.
But he stressed that the bank’s success would depend on African producers generating commercially viable, bankable projects capable of attracting capital.
Although natural gas already generates around 40 per cent of Africa’s electricity, he said the continent’s pipeline infrastructure remains inadequate to fully monetise its vast gas reserves.
Africa has less than 50,000 kilometres of gas pipeline infrastructure, compared with more than 200,000 kilometres of interconnected oil and gas trunk pipelines in Europe, according to the keynote.
The IPPG chairman therefore called for investment in pipelines, gas processing facilities, power grids and export infrastructure to transform Africa’s gas reserves into productive economic assets.
Falade also urged investors to look beyond individual African markets and take advantage of deeper regional integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
He cited the West African Gas Pipeline, which has transported Nigerian gas to Benin, Togo and Ghana for 15 years, as evidence that cross-border energy infrastructure can work on the continent.
He proposed a dedicated AfCFTA Energy Services Protocol to facilitate intra-African hydrocarbon trade, cross-border pipelines and infrastructure, as well as a Pan-African Technical Exchange Programme to accelerate the movement of skills and expertise across producing countries.
For investors, such integration could create larger regional markets for gas-to-power, refining, petrochemicals and energy services, reducing the limitations imposed by fragmented national markets.
While making a strong case for continued investment in oil and gas, Falade rejected the notion that Africa must choose between hydrocarbons and renewable energy.
He said Africa attracted only about two per cent of global clean-energy investment last year despite possessing some of the world’s richest renewable resources.
Africa’s installed renewable capacity has grown from about 33GW in 2014 to 82GW in 2025, but Falade said the continent was still exploiting only a fraction of its solar, hydro, geothermal and wind potential.
His message to investors was therefore one of diversification: gas and renewables should be deployed together to close Africa’s energy-access gap and support industrialisation.
Falade warned that the growing retreat of international capital from African oil and gas projects, driven by global decarbonisation policies, had already left more than 150 projects stalled across the continent, according to industry estimates.
He argued that Africa’s position as a continent responsible for less than three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while holding substantial oil, gas and renewable resources, warranted a development strategy tailored to its own energy needs.
“Africa’s energy must first power Africa,” he said, advocating greater investment in gas-to-power, gas-to-fertiliser, gas-to-industry, refining, petrochemicals, LPG for clean cooking and reliable power for manufacturing.
For global investors, the underlying message from the IPPG is clear: Africa’s energy challenge is also an investment proposition.
The continent needs capital, technology, infrastructure and expertise at a scale that domestic resources alone cannot provide. At the same time, African indigenous operators are increasingly positioned to provide local ownership, market knowledge and operational capacity.
Falade called on governments to provide fiscal stability, faster permits and contract sanctity, while urging financiers and insurers to assess African risk based on operational evidence rather than prevailing narratives.
He said the next phase of Africa’s energy development would require a new investment model built around international capital and technology working alongside increasingly capable African companies.
