LIBREVILLE/LOS ANGELES –Africa is facing one of the world’s great energy windfalls. The continent holds roughly 125 billion barrels of confirmed oil reserves and more than 620 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, implying vast additional deposits still waiting to be discovered. At the same time, some 600 million Africans have no electricity at home, and this figure has not fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic. On current trends, it will still exceed a half-billion in 2030.
The problem is not geological, but political. Every barrel of oil shipped from an African port to a European or Chinese terminal is a barrel not converted into kilowatts for an African household. Every long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) contract signed with a foreign utility commits gas that could be powering an African hospital, school or factory. The choice between exporting hydrocarbons and using them to electrify the continent is highly consequential yet almost never debated openly. That needs to change.
The case for energy exports is clear enough. The continent depends heavily on imported food, medicines, capital equipment and manufactured goods that it does not yet produce at scale. For many producer countries, oil and gas exports are the only reliable imports, service sovereign debt or maintain enough fiscal space to function
