Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla has witnessed the signing of the agreement to establish the African Energy Bank (AEB) between the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
The agreement was signed by Benedict Oramah, Afreximbank’s Chairman, and Omar Farouk Ibrahim, APPO’s Secretary-General.
According to the agreement, the AEB was established as an independent regional bank for the development of African energy resources with an initial capital of $5 billion.
This works to provide the opportunity for African countries to bridge the growing financing gap in the oil and gas industry, and to support investment in all energy sources, including renewable energies. This aims to ensure energy security in light of the challenges of not being able to obtain it that a large percentage of the continent’s population suffers from.
El Molla highlighted the utmost importance of this initiative by establishing the AEB as an important step to provide the opportunity to arrange and provide the necessary financing methods to exploit the abundant and diverse energy resources on the African continent, such as oil, gas and renewable energies.
The minister added that the initiative to establish the bank to provide financing in the field of energy to African countries will help move forward in the energy transition after providing the African continent with its resources and means of financing.
For his part, Oramah explained that the signing represents an important date for the continent, and freximbank is honored to cooperate with APPO in establishing the African Energy Bank. “These are critical times when we must struggle to achieve a balance between the necessity of confronting the risks of climate change and the urgent need to confront the social unrest resulting from the difficult economic and financial conditions in Africa.”
Meanwhile, Ibrahim said that the establishment of the AEB is a response from the continent to deal with the imminent financing challenges imposed by the global shift from fossil fuels to new and renewable energies.
