APPO to mobilise $2bn to fund critical infrastructure in Africa -Kachikwu

AFRICAN Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO), on Monday, announced that the organization is to mobilise about $2 billion of resources to fund critical areas of infrastructural collaboration in Africa.

Its President and Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu made this announcement in his speech at the ongoing Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS), holding in Abuja.

According to him, the whole idea is to mobilise between $1 billion and $2 billion of resources to fund all the essentials necessary for us to properly collaborate.

“Today, most African countries are silos, everybody does their own thing; you build your own refineries, plants, gas turbines etc.  If we could just cross the Rubicon and be able to extend hands of infrastructural relationship across Africa; build joint pipeline, plants and refineries; begin to protect the African market, we would have taken a huge step, not only in the development of Africa, but to the stabilisation of independent countries.

“We have finished that meeting and signed on to resolutions that endorsed all the changes that we have suggested. We are now going to move on the implementation stages.” He asserted.

Dr Kachikwu disclosed that a major reform which would reposition APPO and make it relevant had already been completed.

APPO president said part of the reforms was an increased synergy that would help to mobilize the investment needed to facilitate and deliver the major infrastructure required by the continent, such as trans-border gas and oil pipeline, joint refineries, gas plants and others.

The organization made up of 18 member oil-producing countries, accounts for nearly 95 per cent of Africa’s oil production and at least 13% of world production.

SOURCE: tribune