As part of the NOC Summit sponsored by PGS, Wood Mackenzie and PGS gave presentations on accelerating global investment and partnership within the African upstream at African Energy Week 2023, organized by the African Energy Chamber (http://www.EnergyChamber.org) on Wednesday.

Driving new investments in Africa’s exploration and production activities was the target of a presentation from Wood Mackenzie, which discussed how to commercialize Africa’s resources and better position the continent to compete with other high-growth markets.

“Recent discoveries are boosting the appeal of Africa’s resources. But despite investment rebounding to post-COVID levels, investment has stalled in some African countries due to project delays,” stated Mohamed Mansur, VP, sub-Saharan Africa for Wood Mackenzie. “In addition to the energy transition narrative, challenges across the region persist in terms of above-ground risk, gas monetization project lead times and fiscal attractiveness.” 

Natural gas emerged as another key focus, leveraging drivers of demand from power generation, to its role as a transition fuel, and to a means of energy and economic diversification. With less than 40% of gas volumes discovered in Africa deemed commercial, the continent faces persistent challenges in harnessing its gas resources for domestic use and export to international markets.

“As far as gas is concerned, Africa has the potential to use it as a transition fuel given international gas demand. A significant amount of the gas discovered is not deemed commercially viable, however,” continued Mansur. “What’s complicated with gas monetization is that it requires long-term agreements across its entire value chain. That means sustainable off-take agreements and volumes must be identified and signed off with attractive prices before projects can go ahead.”

A technical presentation from global geophysics company PGS addressed the role of data in the new era of technology-based exploration, and how real-time data can be used to de-risk investments and foster safety, efficiency and skills development.

“The Internet of Things is a pivotal force in revolutionizing the oil and gas exploration and production sectors. This optimizes the production process and plays a crucial role in mitigating risk and enhancing overall safety. Predictive maintenance minimizes unexpected equipment failures…predicting possible malfunctions,” stated Chris Drag, Senior VP for PGS.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Energy Chamber.