No joy in Africa's 'black gold'

2005-05-31 08:37

Maputo - Africa's booming oil and gas exports have not helped improve the lives of average Africans, a UN official said Monday on the eve of a major oil conference opening in the Mozambican capital.

Governments and petrol companies from more than 40 nations were gathering in Maputo for the four-day conference to discuss oil, Africa's largest export product, and discuss policies to stimulate growth in the world's poorest continent.

"Good management of natural resources and of import and export flows are vital to economic progress," Lamon Rutten, spokesperson for the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), which is organising the conference.

"To date however, despite the widespread presence of oil and gas in Africa, there has been little evidence that oil exports have improved the lives of average Africans," he told reporters.

Africa is becoming an increasingly important player in the oil market and the continent last year pushed up its oil production by 8.5% to 8.04 million barrels a day.

Nigeria, the continent's largest producer, produced 2.4 million barrels a day, generating revenues of $34bn last year, the UN said. Angola and Algeria are also big players in the oil market.

"We cannot but stress the importance of oil and gas for Africa. It really has the potential to bring in lots of revenue, yet 85% of people on this continent are still without access to something like electricity," Rutten added.

The ninth Africa Oil and Gas, Trade and Finance Conference and Exhibition was to kick off on Tuesday and would pay particular attention to exploration opportunities in the host country, said Mozambican Mineral Resources Minister Esperanca Bias.

"We have great new legislation, a very favourable investment climate," she said.

Mozambique and South Africa last year opened a 865km pipeline from the Pande and Temane gas fields off the Mozambican coast at a total cost of some R14bn ($2.1bn) together with South African petroleum giant Sasol.

- AFP