The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has signed multiple energy related deals worth US$127mn during the ongoing Africa Energy Week in Cape Town, African Energy Chamber said in a statement on Wednesday.
- •The export credit agency signed a $100mn revolving back-to-back letter of credit facility for JE Energy Ltd to finance the purchase and sell Guyana’s crude oil.
- •It also signed a US $16.8mn asset finance facility for Global Links Ocean Streams Ltd. to acquire an oil tanker for its operations in Nigeria.
- •Another landmark deal was a US$10mn revolving trade finance facility with Dorman Long Engineering Ltd.
“There is no shortage of potential in Africa. The transition is going to be multidimensional and multi-fueled. In Africa, we have seen $58 billion invested in upstream activities in 2019 and it went down to $20 billion in 2020. We hope to see it hit $58 billion in the coming years again,” Atul Arya, Senior Vice President and Chief Energy Strategist at S&P Global Commodity Insights said during the conference’s opening panel.
Afreximbank has been at the forefront of facilitating some of the growth in the energy sector as part of its broader strategy. On the same day it signed the deals, The Republic of Gambia became the 19th member of the financier’s development impact investment arm, the Fund for Export-Development in Africa. Rwanda was the first country to sign FEDA’s establishment agreement, and has been joined by other signatories including Chad, Congo, Kenya, Togo, and South Sudan.
The bank provided $20bn in trade financing in 2021, and plans to double this within the next two years to improve the prospects of intra-continental trade.
Lobbying Trump
Afreximbank has also budgeted a $300, 000 for lobbying the incoming US government led by Donald Trump to ensure that the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act remains a priority policy issue, according to The Africa Report.
The lobbying is part of African government’s push to extend AGOA’s lifetime past its September 2025 end date. The law allows for duty-free and quota-free access to the US market for specific products such as textiles and apparels from Ghana, Mauritius, and Kenya. South Africa exports cars to the US under the deal, while Mozambique exports sugar, tobacco, and nuts.