The Africa Energy Bank launched in Abuja on Saturday, October 31, when Afreximbank and the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) formally established the pan-African lender with $5 billion in authorised capital and named Egyptian banker Helmy Ghazi as its first president. The bank will finance oil, gas, and power projects as international lenders pull back from fossil fuels, and Afreximbank estimates Africa needs about $200 billion in energy investment. Ghazi, a former deputy chief executive of HSBC Egypt, will oversee the operational launch, raise financing and start lending.
The inaugural general meeting approved a first board that draws on the public and private sectors and on policy institutions across the continent, with Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Heineken Lokpobiri, Afreximbank President George Elombi and Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Energy Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly attending. Afreximbank said the bank’s creation “reaffirms African governments’ determination to secure their own energy future.”
The bank will operate as an independent, supranational institution and will fund projects across the energy chain, from exploration and production to transport, processing, refining and distribution. Its stated goals include cutting Africa’s reliance on imported petroleum products, expanding energy trade between African countries and financing the power generation and transmission that industry and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence need. It also says it will support a just energy transition and plans to raise money from governments, national oil companies, financial institutions and private investors. The $5 billion is the maximum capital the bank can issue, not cash in hand.
Helen Brume, Afreximbank’s director of project and asset-based finance, put paid-up capital at about $500 million. Plans call for APPO’s 18 member states to contribute $83 million each, for a total of roughly $1.5 billion, while Afreximbank, other African countries, and outside investors supply the remaining $3.5 billion. Nigeria has committed $100 million, and Angola and Ghana have begun contributing. Climate Home News reports that the bank wants to scale to $120 billion within five years.
The launch ends a long wait. Organisers first targeted January 2025 and then missed several later dates, which Daily Trust attributed to disagreements over equity subscriptions and capital commitments. The bank has set January 4, 2027, as its official start of operations, with its first financing decisions expected in 2027, and it will work from Abuja after Nigeria won the right to host its headquarters in 2024. APPO’s members include Nigeria, Angola, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa.
Supporters see a chance for African governments to control how their resources get financed. Said Addi, a former Shell and Gunvor executive, described the bank as an attempt to give African countries greater control over energy financing, and the African Energy Chamber argues that the continent has a sovereign right to develop reserves of about 125 billion barrels of oil and 620 trillion cubic feet of gas. Critics counter that the focus on oil and gas risks locking in debt.
Africa Change Lab founder Bhekumuzi Dean Bhebhe called the bank a “Trojan horse,” and Kenyan energy expert Joab Okanda noted that $5 billion equals the cost of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline alone. The stakes are high either way, since the International Energy Agency says about 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa still lacked electricity in 2023.
Africa Global News publication.