Oil and gas service providers across Africa have formed a continental forum known as the African Local Content Organisation (ALCO), with the goal of collaborating among themselves to deliver complex projects, creating and retaining value in the multibillion dollar African energy sector and growing the economy.
General Manager, Corporate Communications, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Dr. Obinna Ezeobi in a statement yesterday said the organisation was unveiled on Day 2 of the 2025 Namibia Oil and Gas Conference, at Windhoek, Namibia.
He stated that membership is open to national associations of service providers in the oil and gas and mining sectors across the African continent.
He added that Chairman of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) and member of NCDMB Governing Council, Mr. Wole Ogunsanya, introduced the organisation and explained that the body would serve as the private sector arm of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation, (APPO), which comprises African governments engaged in oil and gas operations.
Ogunsanya underscored the pivotal and complementary roles the private sector plays in building African local content, particularly in the development of competent human capacities, deployment of technologies and equipment, mobilization of private capital, and execution of projects.
He said the organisation would be launched officially at the 2026 African Union (AU) conference, in view of its strategic importance to the continent’s economy.
Ezeobi stated that key to the group’s plan is to institute close partnership with APPO and the African Energy Bank (AEB). He noted that the Bank was recently set up by APPO to fund big ticket energy projects across the continent and bridge the funding gap impeding the development of key energy projects.
Members of the group, Ogunsanya said, were well positioned to execute key scopes of the projects that would be financed by the Energy Bank. This would guarantee value and spend retention in the continent, helping to catalyze the economy.
