Africa Launches Its Own Oil Bank as Western Lenders Retreat

OilPrice.com · Alex Kimani · 2026-11-02 23:00 UTC

Africa has officially established the Africa Energy Bank, aiming to finance oil and gas projects increasingly overlooked by Western lenders due to climate commitments.

Africa now has a bank built to finance the oil and gas projects Western banks and development lenders have dropped under their climate commitments. Afreximbank and the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) formally established the Africa Energy Bank (AEB) at its inaugural general meeting in Abuja on October 31. That was more than four years after the two institutions began work on it and some 20 months behind schedule. Abuja beat bids from six countries, including Ghana, Algeria, South Africa and Benin, to host the bank. Its first president is Helmy Ghazi, formerly deputy CEO of HSBC Bank Egypt, and a board drawn from the public sector, private sector and policy institutions will lead it. The AEB’s mandate covers the entire energy value chain: exploration and production, transport, processing, refining and distribution, cross-border pipelines and regional refineries, and power generation and transmission.

The bank’s $5 billion in authorized capital is a ceiling. About $500 million has been mobilized so far, including $222 million from Afreximbank and a Nigerian contribution reported at between $100 million and $200 million. The AEB aims to mobilize up to $10 billion in financing in its first operational phase and plans to fund at least three projects in 2027, starting with regional refineries and pipelines. Its founders want to cut Africa’s dependence on imported petroleum products, expand intra-African energy trade, and finance “a just energy transition” in which African governments set the pace. The continent needs an estimated $200 billion in energy investment, and roughly 600 million Africans still lack electricity.

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