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SAOGA assists local companies to attract international interests in the industryAfrica remains one of the fastest growing oil-producing regions in the world with over 10 million barrels a day of production on the continent as a whole, more than half of which is produced in the offshore regions of West Africa.
Furthermore, the entire continent remains a region of intense exploration activity with multiple areas of interest: the deep water off the west coast of Africa extending far south into South African waters, the coastal and offshore areas on either side of the Mozambique channel in southeast Africa as well as the promising new discoveries in the east/central African Rift Valley.
In addition, key national operators (e.g. PetroSA, Sasol) are expanding operations in other regions of the world, which creates further accessible opportunities for local industry.
As the economic powerhouse in the region with a sophisticated business environment, lifestyle attractiveness for global human capital and a broad and deep base of manufacturing and service companies as well as being a relatively easy and low-cost place to do business – South Africa is also a desirable location for global companies operating in the region.
Success for South African companies in the regional oil and gas opportunities will come primarily from their private initiative in identifying and exploiting market opportunities. The role of the South African Oil & Gas Alliance (SAOGA) is to help companies succeed in this task and to attract global companies to set up South African-based operations focused on the target market.
SAOGA provides support to businesses through the following three broad strategic programmes:
• Marketing and Business Promotion: SAOGA seeks to grow business by raising the global profile of local industry through conferences and promoting the SA Oil & Gas Directory (www.oilandgassa.com), accessing the public sector trade promotion capability, gathering and disseminating market intelligence, providing specific leads and getting local companies to network for the purposes of selling to each other or working together to win sales.
• Industry Capability Development: SAOGA actively works to ensure that public policy and infrastructure supports the competitive positioning of the company’s region through studies and lobbying efforts. SAOGA also performs a critical role in helping companies to understand and attain the standards of performance and quality required to operate in the industry; this is done through an extensive skills development programme, supplier development initiatives and increasing the co-operation between companies to pursue and deliver opportunities.
• Investment Promotion: Lobbying the public sector to enhance the attractiveness of South Africa as the location for regional bases of global upstream firms and then marketing this proposition globally is another key focus area. South Africa is also an attractive location for global training in the industry and efforts are being made to define a model “Oil & Gas Academy”.
As one envisions South Africa’s possible upstream future, the pictures are exciting: an ‘Aberdeen-like’ regional cluster of global companies situated here, a marine repair and services sector of five to 10 times its current size, a training hub rivalling the major global industry centres, and even a thriving domestic production region off the northwest coast.
Possible, but not yet assured – the challenge is for our companies and the government to work together determinedly to realise these possibilities.
Warwick Blyth
CEO/executive director
SA Oil & Gas Alliance
