With a wobbling Gross Domestic Product of $1.8 trillion, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are on the cusp of economic transformation, with the imminent coming on-stream of the $12 billion Dangote refinery and petrochemicals complex. The region is expected to be the direct beneficiaries of the 650,000 barrels-per-day refinery as the project is expected to drastically reduce the countries’ fuel import majorly from Europe with expected impact on foreign exchange outflows.
These are part of the submissions by oil and gas stakeholders at this year’s Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhIPCON) in Accra, Ghana themed ‘Regional Collaboration; A Catalyst for Transformation’, which was organised by the country’s Ministry of Energy and the National Petroleum Authority.
Sub-Saharan Africa presently boasts of over 132 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves, more than eight per cent of the world’s supply. Yet, it exports most of this oil to overseas refineries; which has for long denied the region of the huge opportunity for economic transformation.
The inability of sub-Saharan African countries to locally refine its oil has taken a huge toll on their economies, with 48.5 per cent of the region’s population living below $1.25 per day and life expectancy hovering at 56 years.