Equatorial Guinea’s minister of mines and hydrocarbons, Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, delivered an official invitation from President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, to join GECF’s 5th Gas Summit and second International Gas Seminar
This will be the first time that the GECF Summit, taking place from 26-29 November 2019, will be hosted on the African continent as part of Equatorial Guinea’s Year of Energy, which already concluded the APPO Cape VII Congress & Exhibition last week in Malabo.
More than 1,000 delegates attended the event, including African ministerial delegations from APPO member countries and African national oil companies.
Equatorial Guinea’s hosting of the GECF summit comes at a time when the country is leading the gas revolution in Africa and the continent is ready to welcome new global LNG exporters like Mozambique and Senegal.
“President Obiang believes that our collaboration with the GEFC is good for our economy and gives us more possibilities to grow a strong gas economy that creates jobs, gets people out of poverty and grows the middle class,” said Lima.
“Bringing heads of states from gas exporting countries to Malabo to agree on important gas issues is an honour for Equatorial Guinea. We will work with other nations and the private sector in particular to harness greater collaboration to monetise our gas,” he added.
On 1 April 2019, Equatorial Guinea took a major step towards establishing the first ever gas mega hub in Africa by signing definitive agreements worth US$350mn with the country’s major operators to monetise gas from the Alen Unit operated by Noble Energy, Glencore, Atlas-Oranto Petroleum and Gunvor.
Equatorial Guinea is also leading the LNG2Africa initiative to promote the use of African gas in Africa. The country recently introduced a new measure to include 25 per cent of produced LNG sold within Africa in all future final investment decisions for gas projects.
