Wanted: Snake handlers.

If you know how to deal with a black mamba or spitting cobra but feel underpaid, the oil industry may have a position for you. In all seriousness and perhaps unsurprisingly, getting bitten by a venomous snake is an occupational hazard in the African oil industry.

“It is a common injury,” Brynn Karch, the chief medical officer of Remote Medical International (RMI), told Business Maverick on the sidelines of the conference.

As its name suggests, Remote Medical International provides medical services to the oil industry in remote areas. In Kenya, which began oil exports in August and where Tullow Oil operates in the bush, Remote Medical International has snake handlers on site to deal with the reptiles. RMI also has freeze-dried anti-venom on site because with snake bites, time is critical.

Liquid assets are not an issue.

The oil and gas industry is hardly suffering a crisis of liquidity, nor is it lacking in a certain category of liquid assets. Africa Oil Week is famed for the sheer volumes of free booze that flows at the networking events that go with it. The stuff, for the record, is not exactly free: companies sponsor these receptions and pay for the grog. At the ExxonMobil event, the red ran dry, but that probably had more to do with the thirst of conference goers than Exxon’s balance sheet. Exxon’s Q3 earnings fell to $3.17-billion from $6.24-billion in the same period in 2018 in the face of lower oil prices. Rival companies have also reported lower earnings but the sector is not exactly on its knees. Industry profits may be down, but spirits were raised at Africa Oil Week.

Uganda is the African oil producer of the future, and will always be.

This is a recurring Africa Oil Week theme. Kenya started exporting oil in August, but Uganda, where big discoveries were made in 2006, cannot seem to get the stuff out of the ground, and keeps moving the goalposts. Uganda’s Oil Minister, Irene Muloni, is affable and unflappable and exudes optimism, but she is starting to sound like a broken record. In 2012 at the Cape Town Mining Indaba, Muloni told this correspondent she was hoping Ugandan oil production would begin in 2013. At the Africa Oil Week in 2018, she told journalists that the east African country expected to join the ranks of African oil producers in 2021, replacing a previous target of 2020. There have been other missed target dates in between. And she told the 2019 conference that 2023 was now the target. New deposits may be formed before Uganda becomes a producer.

It’s a gas.

On a more serious note, it seems gas is Africa’s hydrocarbon future. According to Wood Mackenzie data, since 2015 about 80% of new field discoveries in Africa have been gas. Much of the talk at the conference focused on the harnessing of gas to power up Africa’s economies. Gas is not without its drawbacks on the C02 front, but it is cleaner than coal. All of this talk was probably not hot air.

Everyone cares about climate change. Really.

And speaking of hot air, the industry that is largely held responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that most scientists link to climate change cares about this issue. It really does! Part of the emerging strategy is a focus on gas (see above). The industry is flogging this as something of a compromise, with gas being promoted as the clean fossil fuel and as a transition fuel. Petrochemicals giant and greenhouse gas emitter of note Sasol sees gas as key to its target to cut its emissions by 10% by 2030. Given the urgency of the unfolding climate crisis, many conservationists dismiss gas as an industry smokescreen. The counterargument is that developing regions such as Africa should not be deprived of the opportunity to fire up their own economies by tapping such an abundant resource.

Cape Town is a great place to have a conference.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but Cape Town is a really great place to host a conference. Never mind the fact that it is hardly known as an oil hub. If you want to go to the heart of the industry in the region, you might hold the conference in the Nigerian oil town of Port Harcourt, which proudly dubs itself as The Garden City. This correspondent has not been there since the shambolic elections of 2003, but cannot recall seeing anything that resembled a proper garden, despite the tropical climate. Other options could include Angola’s oil-rich Cabinda enclave, but neither destination is exactly a magnet for the oil executive or fund manager sect. But Cape Town is Cape Town and, water restrictions aside, why would you have an Africa oil jam anywhere else? Delegates from London raved about the quality, size and price of the steak on offer at the Waterfront. And did we mention the weather?

South Africa really wants oil and gas investment, but…

Host nation South Africa is suddenly keen on all things related to oil and gas and wants companies to invest in the sector. But the government and ruling ANC did not have the presence of mind to have the draft of the Petroleum Amendment Act ready to wow investors. Mines and energy minister Gwede Mantashe told journalists that it should be ready for public comment in three weeks, but in the meantime, it has to go through the meat grinder of the Cabinet and ANC factional politics. Maybe the plan was to woo investors with Cape Town and wine as the appetisers and then serve the policies up after. BM