The UAE’s understanding of how to get oil out of the ground is essential for the development of Africa’s oil & gas industry, according to Christopher Fix, CEO of Dubai Mercantile Exchange.
“Africa is growing as a market, which is the most tantalising part for me. You have the Middle East looking to build huge refining capacity. The use of petrol now in the UAE is very, very high and what you want to avoid if you are a Middle Eastern government is taking too much of your crude oil exports and using them internally. You need to generate as much income as you can. You are going to have to find markets as well because the domestic markets are not going to be big enough and I think Africa represents an awesome opportunity for that,” said Fix.
According to Morris Reid, managing director at Mercury, UAE-based NOCs should develop joint ventures with African state oil companies. One of the major benefits of partnerships such as this is that the United Arab Emirates has all the upstream and downstream industries within the country meaning the United Arab Emirates can not only bring its extraction expertise to the African continent, but can export African oil to the UAE for refining.
“It is closer to get to Africa from Dubai and the Middle East than it is from the west. Maybe they don’t have the strategic upper hand that perhaps France has in the francophone countries, but they certainly have it in the countries with a significant Muslim population,” said Reid.
“Africa is ready. I think that there will be a mutual trust there and frankly there is certainly more trust than with some multi-nationals.”
