Luanda – African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO) is preparing a memorandum on the position of the member countries on the energy transition, which will be taken into consideration by the heads of State still this year.
The plan was announced Thursday by APPO CEO and Angolan minister of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino Azevedo, who said the memorandum will be analysed at a conference of African Heads of State, to be held in the near future.
“We have always backed the view that the energetic transition cannot be imposed. The energetic transition should be a dialogue that has to serve for the benefit of all and not to increase energy poverty”, Diamantino Azevedo told the press, on the sidelines of the closing ceremony of the VIII Congress of the organisation.
Delivering his opening speech at the Congress, the President João Lourenço urged Africa to avoid hasty end to fossil fuels, as the continent’s oil-producing countries still rely on crude for its export revenues.
The Angolan statesman also mentioned another reason which, according to him, has to do with the fact that the continent faces a marked level of energy poverty.
More than half of the population on the continent does not have access to any type of modern energy.
The VIII Congress and Exhibition of African Oil Producers revealed that more than 600 million Africans do not have access to modern electricity.
Diamantino Azevedo, who is at the helm of the organisation for one year, said that they have also defended that the first pillar of the energy transition is fossil fuels and that this change “is above all a mineral transition”.
He added that it is based on these fundamentals that the APPO will prepare the position of African oil producing countries on the energetic transition, whose proposal will be submitted to the meeting of heads of state, during Angola’s presidency at APPO.
“We tend and respect that, indeed, we have to look carefully at the issues of pollution, emission of greenhouse gases and other evils, but that this energy transition is not only at the cost of African oil countries and other countries”, stated.
The conference of Heads of State will also discuss the conclusion of the partnership memorandum established between APPO and Afriximbank, aimed to create the African Energy Bank, as well as the proposal on the creation of a paperwork system ( pipelines) that will make it possible to take a step towards achieving the internal oil market for Africa.
Source: Angola Press News Agency