The Minister for Energy & Green Transition, Hon. John Jinapor and the CEO of the Petroleum Commission, Ms. Emeafa Hardcastle, have joined industry leaders in Washington D.C to explore investment partnerships, deepen and enhance existing collaborative efforts in the energy sector.
The discussions held during the 11th Powering Africa Summit (PAS), brings together energy policy makers, regulators, investors and development partners in US and Africa to explore opportunities that foster a conducive environment for public- private partnerships.
According to the Guest Speaker, the U.S Secretary of Energy, Mr. Chris Wright, the objective of the summit is to underscore a mutual commitment to increase energy investments, strengthen energy security and affordability in the interest of both Africa and United States.
“Having affordable energy is a challenge everywhere. It takes not only private investment but also a government that believes in not just talking, but actually making it happen through the creation of an enabling business environment that allows the market and entrepreneurs to thrive,” he stated.
In his remarks, Ghana’s MOEGT, Hon. Jinapor emphasised the need for a balanced narrative, calling for the publicising of positive strides made in Africa’s energy sector and not only negative portrayals of Africa’s energy sector challenges.
He further iterated that Africa’s doors remain open to public private partnerships, and the continent is implementing a number of reforms to attract private capital to the energy sector.
“We acknowledge that government alone can’t achieve this, we need the private sector and energy development partners to support Africa. Opportunities exist for partnerships, but these must be fair and flexible, ensuring a win-win situation for both parties, and aimed at powering Africa reliably, sustainably and inclusively” he said.
Speaking during a closed-door regulator ’s roundtable session, Ms. Hardcastle iterated similar thoughts on the use of clean energy fuels and efforts being made by the upstream sector to meet this need by minimising carbon footprints of petroleum production and utilisation.
According to Ms. Hardcastle, the focus of government is to harness and utilise its natural gas resources for power generation and industrial applications, thus using natural gas as our transition fuel and ultimately as a destination fuel.
“We are currently in negotiations with a number of oil companies to enhance the exploitation of our natural gas resources. There’re also ongoing investment programmes and reforms to improve the gas-to-power infrastructure to address generation bottlenecks in the power sector,” she said.
Further, she added that regulatory initiatives have been put in place to ensure that Ghana’s upstream petroleum sector will continue to support Ghana’s decarbonization and cleaner energy goals under the Nationally Determined Commitments.
The PAS is an international energy conference held annually in the United States to serve as a platform for dialogue and explore opportunities to strengthen the existing energy partnership between key U.S stakeholders and African Energy leaders.