Stakeholders want customised content for Africa's Oil and Gas

NAIROBI, KENYA: Industry stakeholders have advocated for a roadmap to establish a strong regional collaboration across the oil and gas value chain in Africa.

They made the call at the Sixth Edition of East Africa Oil and Gas Summit 2020 which was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The President of Mozambique Oil and Gas Chamber, Florival Mucave, suggested the need to develop a regional master plan bringing together all stakeholders and players to draft content that will be beneficial to the oil and gas industry in Africa. He further explained that the master plan will be used to pressurise the government to advance the regional collaboration in the African continent.

Nuertey Adzeman, Executive Secretary of Ghana Oil & Gas Service Providers Association acknowledged that it is high time to establish a regional collaboration that will transform indigenous players into regional players.

He further explained that it will be easier to collaborate with other African countries such as Nigeria who had already developed a local content framework instead of waiting for foreign companies to do the job.

"If we wait for foreign service companies to come to do the job, we will keep waiting and they won't build our capacity, they will not show us what certification we need and they will not transfer the skills and technical know-how. No foreign companies will teach you their business for you to take it away from them," he noted.

"We need to look inward the continent. It has been done in Nigeria, Ghana, Angola. And these are the players who have done it over the years, and they are the ones we need to look at.

In his response, Emmanuel Mugarura, CEO of Uganda Service Providers Association confirmed that there is no regional collaboration between East Africa countries, noting that the laws in Kenya are not favourable to investors in Uganda. While the laws in Tanzania are not favourable to Kenyan or Ugandan investors.