From Uche Usim, Abuja
Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, has described as terrible and unacceptable, the frightening level of energy poverty in Africa, despite the huge petroleum and gas resources available on the continent.
To this end, he has charged the Chief Executive Officers of African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) to evolve a strategic and sustainable blueprint to solve the energy insufficiency nightmare in the shortest possible time.
Sylva gave the charge in Abuja on Wednesday at a meeting with the APPO member countries’ National Oil and Gas Companies (NOCs) hosted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
Sylva said: “We urgently need to plan for our energy future. Our goal should be energy sufficiency in order to ensure energy security, end the ravaging energy poverty in the continent and drive the continent’s overdue economic breakthrough.
“It is unacceptable in this modern age that 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity, and 900 million have no access to clean cooking fuel. Our imminent mission should be to rescue this vast number of our people from this grip of unjustifiable abject energy poverty”.
According to the Minister, the new challenges posed to the African oil and gas industry by the global energy transition programme will require an approach that is both inclusive and pragmatic.
“Both the policy makers as well as the operators of the industry have crucial roles to play in achieving this. We need you to tell us what are the practical challenges you face today and are likely to face in years to come. These practical realities should constitute major inputs into the policy making process of the political leadership.
Africa is currently at the receiving end of the double devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
“We should harness all our abundant and varied energy resources, including fossil fuels and renewable resources, in
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order to assure, not only availability and accessibility, but also affordability and sustainability, to meet our increasing energy
demand.
“Of course, this does not imply ignoring the issue of CO2 emissions and concerns about climate change, which is fueling the calls for energy transition.
We should however clarify that energy transition does not imply that some energy sources should be abandoned”, Sylva added.
He reckoned that energy transition was all about providing clean
energy, and not about discriminating between energy sources.
“All available energy sources will be required to end the high level of energy poverty in Africa and achieve the sustainable
development goal of providing access to affordable, reliable,
sustainable and modern energy for all”, he noted.