African Leaders Embracing Their Oil and Gas Reserves, Are Saving Their People, Not Destroying The Planet!
Guest Post from Vijay Jayaraj at the CO2 Coalition.
My recent conversation on a social media platform with a close friend in Lagos came to an abrupt, silent end. Hours later, he messaged me back with an apology: The phone battery had died, and his neighborhood had been waiting for restoration of electricity service for the better part of the day.
Power interruptions are common for Nigeria’s largest city of more than 13 million people. It took me back to the 1990s in India, where energy production was a chaotic work in progress. Blackouts were a regular feature of our lives. Today, thanks to India’s enthusiastic use of coal, my children do not need candlelight to do homework. Coal-powered plants keep the lights on for 1.4 billion people. Blackouts still occur, but they are an exception.
I want that same simple certainty for African families. For decades, international aid organizations and financial institutions, held hostage by the red tape of the Paris Agreement and net zero fantasies, strangled funding of projects involving fossil fuels. Instead, modest incentives were offered to implement unreliable and expensive wind and solar power.
But the narrative is shifting. A flickering hope of industrial-grade light is appearing across the continent. From West Africa’s natural gas deposits to East Africa’s new pipelines and Southern Africa’s offshore basins, a story of promise is emerging. Africans are refusing to accept permanent impoverishment in the name of climate orthodoxy. They are breaking the shackles of alarmism and choosing abundant hydrocarbons as the only proven path to prosperity.
West Africa’s Energy Renaissance
In West Africa, Ghana secured a fresh $3.5 billion investment to boost oil and gas output. Under the agreements, Jubilee/TEN partners plan to invest $2 billion, while OCTP partners contribute about $1.5 billion. Development will include increased gas supply for power generation.
Senegal has entered a definitive new chapter with Phase 1 of the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) project now producing gas. GTA’s resource base supports expansion that can both feed domestic power demand and supply global markets.
Equatorial Guinea Goes Big
In Equatorial Guinea, Malabo and Yaoundé have signed a long-anticipated deal to develop the Yoyo-Yolanda gas fields, which have an estimated 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Equatorial Guinea also signed an agreement with Italian energy major Eni that will focus on geological analysis and evaluation, setting the stage for a revival in exploration.
The country is preparing for its “EG Ronda” licensing round in April 2026, offering 24 oil and gas blocks to the market and has amended its Hydrocarbon Law to improve fiscal terms, making it clear to the world that Equatorial Guinea is open for extraction of resources.
In Mozambique, the French energy giant TotalEnergies has restarted construction on a massive $20 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. Intended to produce over 13 million metric tons of LNG per year, the project could generate up to $35 billion in revenues for the Mozambican state over its lifetime.
In the East, Uganda and Tanzania are advancing negotiations to construct a pipeline for refined petroleum products. This will ensure these two landlocked nations are not held hostage by supply chain disruptions or global price spikes.
Offshore exploration in Namibia’s Orange Basin has identified an estimated 21 billion barrels of light crude, alongside high‑quality gas that could revive long‑stalled plans key to industrial strategies.
North Africa Wakes Up
Perhaps the most striking turnaround is in North Africa. Libya, a country plagued by instability for years, is making a thunderous return to the energy stage. For the first time since 2007, Tripoli has successfully awarded oil and gas exploration blocks to foreign majors like Chevron, Eni, QatarEnergy and Repsol.
Libya aims to boost oil production by 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to reach 1.6 million by the end of this year, with a target of 2 million bpd by 2030. For Libya, more production means more jobs and foreign exchange to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by conflict. Crude will flow from the Sirte and Murzuq basins, and the benefits will show up as salaries, roads and power lines.
African policymakers now demand domestic processing, negotiate terms that increase local participation and invest in training and supply chains. Climate cultists may label this as heresy. Rational people recognize it as a response to persistent energy poverty.
By embracing their oil and gas reserves, African leaders are not destroying the planet; they are saving their people.
Originally published in Real Clear Energy on April 7, 2026.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada
#Africa #Oil #NetZero #Electricity #GreenEnergy #VijayJayaraj #CO2Coalition #NaturalGas
I read the article twice and found no reference to Chinese participation in Africa’s oil and gas development. Since the CCP is supposed to have bought up or controlled most of the mineral rights in Africa, maybe the continent’s leaders have wisely decided not to “put all their eggs in one basket”. Hmmmm?
Every hardship brought to people is by and large caused by a “fix” that Capitalism “needs”-which is always wealth taken from the producers to diminish their success by interfering with what they provide to their customers.