Author Archives: NJ Ayuk

AOG 2022 Presents A Great Opportunity To Invest In Angola’s Oil And Gas Future – Nj Ayuk

NJ Ayuk is the founder and CEO of Centurion Law Group and the executive chair of the Africa Energy Chamber of Commerce.

Now more than ever is the time to invest in Angola’s energy industry and drive inclusive and sustainable economic growth on the back of oil and gas. At a time when global markets are turning to African oil and gas, Angola has emerged as a highly attractive investment destination among international players, with the country’s […]

No need to Lament about the Oil Discovery in Namibia’s Kavango Basin. What About the Huge Benefits It Represents for Namibians? (By NJ Ayuk)

Six months ago, Canadian oil and gas company Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. (“ReconAfrica”) began exploratory drilling in the deep Kavango Basin of northeast Namibia and into northwest Botswana. The company holds a total licensed area of 8.5 million acres in the area, and it hoped to find massive reserves of conventional oil in this thick […]

Net Zero? Not for Africa. Not Yet. Africa Must Fight Energy Poverty with Oil and Gas Development

By NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman, African Energy Chamber On May 18, 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector,” which outlines plans for the global energy sector to reach “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Achieving net zero emissions means the amount of greenhouse […]

Greenpeace and Western Anti Africa Energy Groups Take the Wrong Approach to East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda and Tanzania

By NJ Ayuk, Executive President of the African Energy Chamber. If someone were to put me on the spot and ask me to name an environmentalist group, I’d probably blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, Greenpeace. There are obvious reasons for this: Greenpeace has been around for more than 50 years, and […]

Energy Industry will be the bedrock of Africa’s Road to Recovery

African Energy producers and the governments are facing an unprecedented economic crisis due to the Coronavirus, unemployment, recession, and energy poverty and energy transition concerns. The African Energy Chamber’s Road to Recovery: How the African energy industry can reshape itself for a post-COVID comeback offers a commonsense strategy for the public and the private sector […]

Africa needs Pragmatic Free Market policies to attract capital into Gas markets

NJ Ayuk, CEO, Centurion Law Group

Speaking at the International Petroleum (IP) Week on February 25, 2021, I commended Nigeria for its efforts in driving gas monetization, but we have to be clear that our industry and hardworking people remain frustrated by the delays and inability to pass and sign the Petroleum Industry Bill. There needs to be that fierce sense […]

It’s Time to Rethink Licensing Rounds: For Africa’s Oil- and Gas-Producing Countries, Negotiating the Current Environment May Require…Negotiation

In late 2019, as the African oil and gas industry was looking to the future with optimism, an Offshore Engineer wrote that the continent had reason to expect a “more productive 2020.” Instead, the unforeseen happened, and the COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on the oil and gas industry in Africa and around the […]

Ending Violence in Mozambique Will Require United Effort; African Energy Chamber Stands Ready to Assist

I won’t sugarcoat it: The situation in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province is dire. Armed conflicts between security forces and the militant Islamic group, Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamo (ASWJ), known locally as “al-Shabab” even though it has no connections to the Somali group with that name, have left dozens of people dead and displaced thousands since […]

Angolan Legal Reform Shows How Africa Can Use Oil and Gas As a Springboard Towards Job Creation— But Only if It Looks Beyond the Obvious Options

For decades, many of Africa’s oil- and gas-producing states followed a predictable pattern. They treated their oil and gas primarily as raw materials that could be sold abroad for a quick profit, rather than as a means of supporting efforts to make more lasting changes in the economy of the nation as a whole. This […]

African Countries Must Develop Strategic Fiscal Policies to Survive Oil and Gas Industry Changes on Horizon

NJ Ayuk

The future of the global oil and gas industry has been a subject of great fascination and debate for decades. Since COVID-19 surfaced, there has been even more conjecture on this topic and, in particular, the most likely timing for “peak oil,” when crude production reaches its maximum rate before going into permanent decline. Predictions […]

What Angola can learn from Nigeria as it creates remarkable opportunities for marginal oil production

NJ Ayuk is the founder and CEO of Centurion Law Group and the executive chair of the Africa Energy Chamber of Commerce.

The Nigerian experience with marginal oil field development had measurable success, with 24 licenses awarded to 31 companies, some as sole operators and others as joint-ventures With production declining and investment scarce, the Angolan leadership has put in place a number of new policies to reboot its oil industry and propel economic development. However, those […]