By: OrePulse

Godfrey Moagi, chief executive of the South African National Petroleum Company (SANPC), has been named chair of the African Petroleum Producers' Organization (APPO) National Oil Companies CEOs Forum, succeeding Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) chief executive Kwame Ntow Amoah.

The handover was announced Monday at APPO's eighth annual NOCs CEOs Forum, held during African Energy Week in Cape Town, South Africa. The forum brings together chief executives of national oil companies from across the continent to coordinate on refining, financing and workforce issues facing the industry.

Moagi outlined three priorities for his tenure: building commercially viable refining capacity across the continent, accelerating the establishment of the proposed African Energy Bank, and strengthening workforce skills through cooperation among African national oil companies.

On refining, Moagi said expanding capacity must go hand in hand with developing markets able to sustain it. "We cannot afford to have refineries in every single country without also building credible, viable markets," he said.

He also pointed to the African Energy Bank as a potential source of financing for projects that have lost support from traditional lenders. "The bank will help us fund the very projects we are struggling to finance when Western funders say they won't fund us," Moagi said.

Moagi called for closer cooperation among producers facing similar obstacles, saying, "When confronting challenges, we must look across our borders for solutions." He added that he intends to lead the forum "as a convener for all of Africa, not as a representative for South African interests."

Amoah, in his outgoing remarks, highlighted collaboration between GNPC and PetroSA, SANPC's exploration and production subsidiary, on the Jubilee offshore development in Ghana. He urged APPO members to coordinate further on access to capital and workforce development, citing the planned launch of the African Energy Bank and a pan-African local content framework set to be unveiled in Brazzaville. "We no longer need to develop projects in isolation: we must find ways to build together," Amoah said.

The NOCs CEOs Forum operates under APPO, the pan-African body representing oil-producing states and their national companies. The GNPC-PetroSA cooperation on the Jubilee project was cited by Amoah as a model for broader collaboration among African producers facing similar financing and development challenges.