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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Africa's creaking energy sectors

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Speaker 1: holding back an industrial revolution.

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Speaker 2: Satellite imagery of African cities compared to satellite imagery of

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Speaker 2: Western cities at night, you can see the darkness versus

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Speaker 2: the light.

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Speaker 1: As public and development funding falls, can Africa build the

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Speaker 1: energy infrastructure it urgently needs to grow?

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Speaker 2: Electricity is a fundamental right?

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Speaker 3: Is that that you can't have health, education, anything delivered

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Speaker 3: a country industrialized using diesel pod generators because it's expensive.

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Speaker 3: It's a very expensive option with which to operate factories

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Speaker 3: and it makes you uncompetitive.

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Speaker 1: On today's podcast, we'll look at what's holding back the

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Speaker 1: African energy sector and where the funding might come from.

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Speaker 2: To turn it around.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jennifer's Abasaga and this is the Next Africa Podcast,

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Speaker 1: bringing you one story each week from the continent driving

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Speaker 1: the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: can provide. Later on we will hear from doctor Owen Omogafo,

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Speaker 1: chief executive of Nigeria Energy Investor Transport.

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Speaker 2: But first we're going to start with our Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: Energy reporter Paul Burkhart, who is joining us on the podcast. Paul,

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us this week. Let's just

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Speaker 1: start with your piece that is now available on Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: platforms now, which really takes a look at the extent

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Speaker 1: of Africa's energy grid and perhaps also what it's lacking.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk us through some of the numbers that

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Speaker 1: you found and how much energy Africa actually needs right

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Speaker 1: now and then when it's actually generating.

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Speaker 4: So what we started out with this piece was actually

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Speaker 4: the question of why isn't Africa industrializing faster? And when

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Speaker 4: you look at those numbers, it's only eleven percent of

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Speaker 4: GDP and Africa is manufacturing compared to like twenty two

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Speaker 4: percent in East Asia. There's also this measure called global

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Speaker 4: manufacturing added that's actually shrunk on the continent from three

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Speaker 4: percent to two percent over the last decade. And you

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Speaker 4: have to keep in mind that Africa is the continent

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Speaker 4: where that'll make up a quarter of the world's population

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Speaker 4: by twenty fifty, So big population.

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Speaker 2: A lot of jobs needed.

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Speaker 4: And the answer to industrialization issue is electricity. And so

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Speaker 4: the difference between African countries and other nations outside of

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Speaker 4: Africa is quite stark. So consumption, for example, per capita

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Speaker 4: in Congo is like one percent of US consumption, and

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Speaker 4: Nigeria's grid only provides the equivalent of like a very

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Speaker 4: small European countries have, So that that's the problem. And

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Speaker 4: if you don't have power, you can't manufacture.

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Speaker 1: Right, and especially with the magnitude of the populations that

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Speaker 1: we see across the continent. Into the success I think

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Speaker 1: we can call it of Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam, which

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Speaker 1: we saw switched on earlier this year. But in the

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Speaker 1: piece you described this as an outlier. Why why has

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Speaker 1: it been so hard to replicate this model? We know,

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Speaker 1: we know it took quite a long time for them

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Speaker 1: to get this up and running, but why an outlier?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that that kind of gets into the

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Speaker 4: problem that's faced by most countries, and that that is

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Speaker 4: because you know, the typical usually you would you'd get

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Speaker 4: your electricity from the state utility, but state utilities are

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Speaker 4: often broke, they haven't been able to expand, and they

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Speaker 4: haven't privatized like many have abroad, and so that's the

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Speaker 4: first stop for supply. Also, financing came up as like

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Speaker 4: a like a huge obstacle due to risk. Another issue

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Speaker 4: is like the end user, do you build the power

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Speaker 4: station on the expectation that there will be enough demand.

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Speaker 4: So the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was really championed and

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Speaker 4: financed by the state and the people, and now they

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Speaker 4: have to pay that back. But they also found a

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Speaker 4: major off taker, interestingly with crypto minors, so that takes

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Speaker 4: up about thirty percent of what the dam produces. So

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Speaker 4: and that's in that sense it worked out. Of course,

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Speaker 4: it's like a very charged issue because only like one

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Speaker 4: in five Ethiopians have power. So again it's kind of

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Speaker 4: this trade off like do you industrialize first and then

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Speaker 4: create jobs from that or do you try to connect

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Speaker 4: people to power first. It's just like not is it

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Speaker 4: becomes very complex?

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Speaker 2: Is that a similar picture?

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Speaker 1: Or in what ways are is that similar to what

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Speaker 1: we're seeing in Nigeria because a population of two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty million and still only a fraction of the

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Speaker 1: population actually has energy.

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Speaker 2: What are we seeing there that stood out to you?

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Speaker 4: I think what we see in Nigeria is like a

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Speaker 4: major workaround that isn't really sustainable. So what's happened is

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Speaker 4: the grid just like doesn't work that well, so people

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Speaker 4: rely on generators and some of my colleague Duka or

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Speaker 4: Geneo visited a garment factory and it's just one of

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Speaker 4: countless examples where generators are always like starting up when

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Speaker 4: the grid turns off. Roughly eighty six percent of Nigerian

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Speaker 4: businesses rely on gasoline diesel generators, so that creates a

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Speaker 4: huge cost, like between the outages and the fuel that

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Speaker 4: is between like five and seven percent of GDP, So

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Speaker 4: it really takes its toll even that workaround. And what

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Speaker 4: you need is, you know, just a bigger power source

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Speaker 4: for cheaper and accessible and reliable.

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Speaker 1: Power when it comes to solutions, then is there any

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Speaker 1: cause for optimism? I mean, we also have to point

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Speaker 1: out that there's still a lot of talk about the

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Speaker 1: transition right and yet a number of these countries still

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Speaker 1: need to industrialize. So what would you say, where are

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Speaker 1: we at right now in sort of solving some of

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Speaker 1: these issues here?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So again it's bring this argument of like finding

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Speaker 4: the off taker. That's like a very progressive view on

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Speaker 4: the spectrum of approaches. So critical minerals could really be

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Speaker 4: a catalyst and bringing more electricity to a place like

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Speaker 4: Congo that has some of the richest deposits of cobalt copper.

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Speaker 4: If they process some of those minerals further by using electricity,

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Speaker 4: that's jobs and revenue. And so what we're seeing our

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Speaker 4: minds run on generators like this same example as Nigeria

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Speaker 4: that require a massive amount of fuel, and we're starting

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Speaker 4: to see projects that want to connect transmission lines to

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Speaker 4: hydro projects that are nearby, and the investment in the

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Speaker 4: critical minerals could drive this expansion of the power system.

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Speaker 4: So that's very much upright spot. The Renaissance Dam is

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Speaker 4: a bright spot, and Morocco was also a country that

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Speaker 4: came up in terms of just being able to draw

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Speaker 4: a lot of investment in renewables there. So one expert

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Speaker 4: that we spoke to so Blimbog's was a former World

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Speaker 4: Bank economist, said that if the Ethiopian dan works out,

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Speaker 4: and there are a couple more examples like that African

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Speaker 4: success stories, that momentum will really build from there on

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Speaker 4: the continent.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Paul. After the break, we're going to

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Speaker 1: dig a bit deeper into Nigeria's energy problems and possible

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Speaker 1: solutions as well with Transcorp CEO doctor Owen Omogifo.

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Speaker 2: We'll be right back. Welcome back. Today.

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Speaker 1: We're talking energy and how the continent's creaking energy grid

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Speaker 1: is holding back an industrial revolution. At Bloomberg's Africa Business

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Speaker 1: Summit this week, one of the speakers was doctor owen Omogiafo.

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Speaker 1: She's the Group President and CEO of Nigeria's Transcorp, a

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Speaker 1: major operator of power plants in the country. Doctor owen Omogiafo,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we just start here.

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Speaker 1: We're just given a pretty shark picture of Nigeria's energy grid.

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Speaker 1: Can you give us some insight into what's really held

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Speaker 1: back reliable energy in the country, what's behind a lot

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Speaker 1: of this.

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Speaker 3: Like you said, there's a stock picture a country that

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Speaker 3: has a need for about forty five to fifty gigawatts

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Speaker 3: of power and our greed today can only do about

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Speaker 3: six gigawats of power. But that is not to imply

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Speaker 3: that the country is in darkness because the greed can

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Speaker 3: only do so much. But it just shows that you

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Speaker 3: have people who are generating in their own power independently.

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Speaker 3: So historically, power system Nigeria was one hundred percent as

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Speaker 3: a state owned enterprise, meaning that the government managed the generation,

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Speaker 3: transmission and distribution of power in Nigeria. In twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 3: a privatization exercise took place whereby the value chain was

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Speaker 3: broken into three segments, generation, transmission and distribution. Now for

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Speaker 3: the privatization, the generation site was one hundred percent privatized.

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Speaker 3: So we in Transcrip we have three power generating plants

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Speaker 3: that we obtained through the privatization exercise. The distribution company

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Speaker 3: was privatized as sixty percent private sector new investors and

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Speaker 3: forty percent still managed by the government, whilst the transmission

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Speaker 3: on the other hand, one hundred percent stayed on the

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Speaker 3: federal the federal government. So you see that on the

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Speaker 3: generation side, naturally the discipline of private sector we run

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Speaker 3: businesses looking at maximizing efficiency and value. The generational capacity

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Speaker 3: has increased in the past ten years. If I look

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Speaker 3: at TransCore as an example, the power plant that we

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Speaker 3: bought in twenty thirteen, at the time of procurement, the

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Speaker 3: available capacity was one hundred and sixty megawards. We've taken

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Speaker 3: it up to about seven hundred megawards. If we look

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Speaker 3: at our a firm plant from thirty five megawak, but

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Speaker 3: we've taken out to three hundred and forty eight megawards.

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Speaker 3: And this story I'm telling cuts across other generation companies

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Speaker 3: as well, orbeit's not at the same level of performance

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Speaker 3: for some now when you now look at the transmission

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Speaker 3: there's been practically no investments at all in the transmission side,

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Speaker 3: beyond the limpsy system maintenance. Right a country that has

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Speaker 3: an installed capacity of fourteen thousand megawards of power, your

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Speaker 3: grid cannot be six thousand megawards? Now, what are the

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Speaker 3: o our wall challenges? We have the infrastructure issues that

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Speaker 3: are in there. There is also liquidity. We've had some

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Speaker 3: conversations with the government. We will owe quite a bit

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Speaker 3: of money right now. But under the government of President

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Speaker 3: Bola Medinubu, we are having conversations right now with the

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Speaker 3: Minister of Power, Ministry of Finance and the Office of

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Speaker 3: the Special Advisor to the President and Energy where we're

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Speaker 3: having some discussion on how the historical debt will be paid.

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Speaker 3: And this is the most we have, most progress we've

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Speaker 3: made in a long time. The sector is one that

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Speaker 3: is profitable, is one that creates impact and truly for

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Speaker 3: us to drive the intoestralization of Nigeria, we must fix

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Speaker 3: that PAS sector.

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Speaker 1: You know, just speaking to that because a lot of

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Speaker 1: the discussions that I've been having over the past few

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Speaker 1: days around B twenty is about the private sector becoming

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Speaker 1: more involved in some of these projects and development across

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Speaker 1: the continent. When we talk about Transcorp, you're planning a

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Speaker 1: few new projects, but how quickly do you see them

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Speaker 1: being able to kickstart and support some of the energy

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Speaker 1: gaps that we're seeing in Nigeria And I guess maybe

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Speaker 1: you can speak to how quickly other private producers can

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Speaker 1: do so at this point or if there are still

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Speaker 1: a few bottlenecks and red tape that's getting in the way.

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Speaker 3: I'm glad that the g twinds heavenliest conversation about the

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Speaker 3: role that the private sector must play in the developments

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Speaker 3: of Africa as well as subalances out as well the

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Speaker 3: rule of governments in create it in an enabling environment

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Speaker 3: for US private sector players to thrive. And frankly, that

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Speaker 3: is the principle of Africa capitalism that our group chairman,

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Speaker 3: mister Tony Limelo talks about, which is simple that private

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Speaker 3: sector has to lead in the development of Africa and

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Speaker 3: for Transco, it's called our purpose is to improve lives

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Speaker 3: and transform Africa in everything that we do, and energy

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Speaker 3: is at the core of it. Because the more you

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Speaker 3: get part to your location. You just development will follow

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Speaker 3: infrastructure challenges. You find that businesses to situate. And when

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Speaker 3: businesses situate, what do you do. You're creating jobs. You

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Speaker 3: create jobs, you create economic opportunities, and we're driving these

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Speaker 3: very very strongly. Nigeria is rich, very rich in oil

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Speaker 3: and gas. We need investments in that gas space and

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Speaker 3: this is what other private sector players are also doing.

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Speaker 3: There's more investment going on in there so that we're

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Speaker 3: able to generate more power and within the next I mean,

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Speaker 3: I look forwards when there's Lulu in Nigeria and just

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Speaker 3: being in South Africa and listening to the minister speak

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Speaker 3: two days ago about this and that's what I want.

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Speaker 3: Where every Nigerian can have that access to electricity, you

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Speaker 3: have that confidence that you know what, I can plan

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Speaker 3: my business, I can drive my business, I can grow

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Speaker 3: because electricity is not a problem.

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Speaker 1: And that was Transcorps. Doctor owen Omojiafo. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for joining us, and thanks again to Bloomberg's Paul Burkhard,

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Speaker 1: who you heard from earlier in the podcast. You can

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Speaker 1: read his report on Bloomberg platforms. Now we'll put a

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Speaker 1: link to that in the show notes. Here's some of

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Speaker 1: the other stories we've been following across the region this week.

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Speaker 2: The US formally warned.

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Speaker 1: South Africa against pushing for a joint statement at this

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Speaker 1: weekend's Group of twenty summit in Johannesburg that the Trump

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Speaker 1: administration is boycotting. That's according to a document seen by Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: And Chinese companies plan to help Morocco establish a competitive

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Speaker 1: production base for electric mobility products such as motor scooters,

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Speaker 1: small tractors and motorbikes. That's according to an interview with

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Speaker 1: Morocco's Industry and Trade Minister Riad Mazour. Several Chinese manufacturers

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Speaker 1: quote have the intention to localized manufacturing or the assembly

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Speaker 1: of their products in partnership with local companies, he told Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: And you can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the

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Speaker 1: Next African Newsletter. We'll put a link to that in

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Speaker 1: the show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley

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Speaker 1: and tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and review this

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Speaker 1: show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But for now

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Speaker 1: I'm Jennifer's Abasaja.

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Speaker 2: Thanks as always for listening.