Africa Energy Week: Energy deals must deliver jobs and growth, participants say

Africa Energy Week (AEW) is underway in South Africa's Cape Town and optimism is high.

The five-day conference brings together stakeholders for discussions on energy investment, market access and industrial growth.

"This year at AEW, we have already seen 10 billion dollars worth of deals," says Verner Ayukegba, Senior Vice President of the African Energy Chamber.

"Angola for example where we have seen EduEnergias take over some of the legacy assets given by Chevron. We also seen Senegal makes significant announcements around gas projects in that country. And the same thing is [happening in] Nigeria around what AMNI is doing and getting more gas for Train 7 [LNG Project]. We're looking at the Morocco-Nigeria pipeline which is also going to be asking for significant investment dollars that in itself phased, is going to require far beyond the 10 billion dollars that I said."

But deals to extract oil and gas aren't enough. Participants say they want to see Africa's vast resources deliver jobs and growth.

"We've got a very big opportunity. We're [going to add] more data centers, you've got a lot of gas, you need a lot of energy. And I think we are going to have to do that to deal with unemployment. Just [conducting] exploration and extracting that gas and oil brings unemployment down, but actually imagine now, if we actually get [related] industries, it becomes very powerful."

The conference isn't without its critics. Environmental protesters calling for an end to new oil and gas exploration have dubbed the event 'Africa Exploitation Week.'