Afreximbank Now Africa’s Largest Oil, Gas Financier—Wale Tinubu

By Adedapo Adesanya

The chief executive of Oando Plc, Mr Wale Tinubu, says the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is now the largest financier of oil and gas projects on the African continent.

Mr Tinubu said the bank has committed over $25 billion in Africa’s oil and gas sector while speaking at the Royal African Society’s conference in London on the next 125 years of mining, oil and gas in Africa, according to a social media post on Wednesday.

“Afreximbank is now the largest financier of oil and gas on this continent, with more than twenty-five billion dollars committed,” he wrote on X.

Mr Tinubu said 20 years ago, when Oando wanted to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, “we were told what would be required of us”.

He said the company was directed to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), while the board was also asked to appoint independent directors who could tell the founder “no”.

“Get on a plane and explain ourselves, quarter after quarter, to people who had never set foot in Lagos. It was uncomfortable. It was also the most valuable thing we ever did to ourselves,” he said.

“I returned to that experience in London at the Royal African Society’s (@royafrisoc) discussion on the next 125 years of mining, oil and gas in Africa, where I was asked what African companies need in order to scale.

“The answer begins at home. Much of African enterprise started out fractured; family-held, informally governed, structurally invisible to anyone underwriting a twenty-year risk. Global capital hesitates over what it cannot examine.”

The Oando CEO said governance is more than a compliance exercise, describing it as an instrument that makes a company legible to the world.

“The second half of the answer sits with the world. When European lenders withdrew from African hydrocarbons in pursuit of their own net zero commitments, they did not end demand for African energy,” he said.

“They ended their participation in it. African institutions stepped into that space.”

Mr Tinubu said African firms have done the harder work “of making ourselves investable”, noting that what does not get financed does not get built, and “there is still much to build in Africa for those willing to build it with African companies”.

In Nigeria, the bank has been a major financier of the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Petroleum Refinery, including a $1.35 billion facility in 2025 to refinance construction costs and a further $2.5 billion underwriting commitment in 2026.

The bank has also supported the development of the 200,000 barrels-per-day Lobito Refinery in Angola, the 60,000 barrels-per-day Cabinda Refinery, and the refurbishment of Nigeria’s 210,000 barrels-per-day Port Harcourt Refinery. It has additionally approved financing for the BUA and Azikel refineries in Nigeria and supported Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage in Côte d’Ivoire.

Beyond refining, Afreximbank committed up to $400 million in guarantees and direct lending to Mozambique’s Area 1 LNG project, one of Africa’s largest LNG developments, to support the extraction, processing and liquefaction of offshore gas.

In Angola, the bank helped arrange a $1.75 billion syndicated facility for Sonangol to support the national oil company’s operating and capital expenditure requirements. It has also been mandated to advise on raising capital for Equatorial Guinea’s $4.5 billion EG-27 LNG project, which is expected to produce about 2.4 million tonnes of LNG annually. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the lender is supporting preparations for a 200MW reservoir-based hydropower project along the Lufira River, designed to provide electricity to mining operations.