“I’m not building this project for me; I’m building this project for my grandchildren”.
These words – spoken by one of our clients in Sub-Saharan Africa leading the development of an energy project of a scale not seen before in the country – will resonate with many of us who have had the opportunity to work in Africa and other developing economies.
One of the great privileges of working in the energy industry is the ability to create something and see the benefits it brings to local economies during development and in the longer term. For many, this privilege is most tangible in developing economies where the results of energy investment can be most visible – directly through the creation of jobs and increased electrification, and indirectly through the benefits delivered to families and communities.
Marimba Magic
In the spirit of building for the future, Gas Strategies would like to extend its thanks and congratulations to Hogan Lovells for recently hosting a “Marimba Magic” evening to raise awareness and funds for its charity partner Education Africa.
For those not familiar, a marimba is a big xylophone with wooden keys, which the player strikes with a mallet. The music is amplified through tubes that hang below the keys, giving it a deep, rich sound.
Education Africa arranged the trip of a lifetime to London for ten school girls from the Alexandra township in Johannesburg, who have been working hard to master the marimba in preparation for a series of concerts in the UK capital.
In addition to their own performances, the girls had the chance to experience life in London, staying with host families and taking in the tourist sites, including the chance to attend a performance of a West End musical.
In its charitable work, Education Africa seeks to assist disadvantaged South Africans to obtain a relevant, quality education to ensure that they are in a position to become global citizens.
To find out more, please visit Education Africa’s website at educationafrica.org. Thanks again to the performers and Hogan Lovells for an excellent and lively evening.
Optimism for African energy
There was a huge sense of possibility at CbI’s Africa Investment Exchange event in London and great optimism about the future for energy in Africa.
Recent commercial and technical development in LNG-to-power solutions is creating an opportunity to meet the needs of energy-hungry markets in Africa in ways that are more appropriate than ever before. With over a dozen LNG import and LNG-to-power projects proposed in Africa, Gas Strategies’ Chris Levell outlined the tremendous scope to create a solution that is fit-for-purpose for each individual market opportunity.
Another roundtable discussion on the developments of the North African gas sector, led by David Drury, explored the potential of an energy hub in Egypt, given its significant domestic demand, underutilised LNG export capacity and proximity of gas supply from its own fields as well as other resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Our thanks go to conference host CbI and fellow panellists, including our friends from the IPP Office of South Africa, ONEE in Morocco and Sub-Saharan Africa-focused law firm Webber Wentzel.
Creating the future for generations to come can be an enormous driver of motivation, one that Gas Strategies’ has been lucky to experience, having working with clients and projects in developing economies in Africa for nearly 30 years.
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