A scientific and practical seminar on "Energy and industrial and raw sector in the context economic strategy African states" was held at the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences on April 7, 2015. The seminar organized by the Center for the Study of Transition Economy Problems of the Institute (head - E. V. Morozenskaya) presented reports of leading Russian Africanists on issues relevant to Africa: development existing and planned enterprises in the energy sector; prospects for oil and gas production; competition of the world's leading companies for the oil market of the continent, etc. The most pressing issues discussed were the activities of major Western multinational corporations( TNCs), Chinese, Indian and African companies in the oil and gas and mining sectors, as well as the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the socio-economic development of individual countries and regions in Africa.
As noted in the report of G. E. Roshchin (IAfr. RAS), FDI inflows to Africa after a sharp decline in 2010 to US $ 47 billion resumed and increased to US $ 57 billion in 2013. This was supported by international and regional investments focused on the development of new markets and infrastructure projects. Expectations of further middle-class growth have stimulated FDI inflows in consumer-driven industries, including food processing, information technology, tourism, the financial sector, retail, and in part social infrastructure, without which political stability in the continent may be seriously compromised.
Key areas of foreign investment in the mining industry in Africa are South Africa, Guinea, Sierra Leone, DRC, Congo (Brazzaville), and Cameroon. These countries have managed to provide foreign investors with the most favorable investment climate, primarily in the field of legislative and tax regulation. Botswana, Tanzania and Burkina Faso have made significant progress in this regard.
In other countries of the continent, the legal regimes of investment regulation are usually evaluated negatively by international experts. Thus, in Ghana, numerous violations are recorded when issuing permits by the environmental protection agency, which leads to delays in obtaining licenses for subsurface development. As a result, conditions are created for illegal activities in the mining industry, which forces investors to make illegal payments to local authorities.
V. S. Bondarenko and A. A. Tkachenko (both IAfr RAS) described the activities of foreign companies in the energy sector of Africa. Along with the largest TNCs in the 2000s, Russian energy companies appeared and actively operate on the continent. Lukoil, Rosneft and Stroytransgaz signed contracts for the development of oil fields in Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. Major Russian companies that were engaged in geological exploration for the presence of industrial hydrocarbon reserves in Algeria, Ghana, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Libya, Namibia, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, participated in the construction of gas pipelines, gas storage facilities, acquired rights to oil blocks and other assets in the industry.
At the same time, the positions of Russian oil and gas companies in Africa remained very limited in the 2000s, primarily due to insufficient support from the Russian government in such areas as stimulating exports and foreign investment; establishing preferential regimes for Russian-African joint ventures; and preventing and lifting restrictive measures of foreign states against Russian businesses.
Specifying the activities of oil TNCs in the countries of West and Central Africa, Tsvetkova (IB RAS) emphasized that it was foreign companies that discovered oil fields in Africa and began to produce oil there: Royal Dutch Shell - in Nigeria since 1958, Total - in the Republic of Congo since the end of the 20th century. In the 1960s, "Mobil" in Equatorial Guinea since 1995. However, at present, in the field of oil and gas production in the producing countries, the leaders are not Western TNCs, but national oil and gas companies
companies (NOCs), mostly state-owned. At the same time, the leading oil TNCs retain their primacy in terms of value turnover.
TNCs in the oil and gas industry are characterized by a vertically integrated structure. Therefore, TNCs compensate for the loss of control over the stage of oil and gas production by maintaining control over the transportation and processing of oil and the sale of petroleum products. In oil production, TNCs operate on the basis of production sharing contracts and create mixed enterprises with NOC. For example, the Anglo-Dutch TNK Royal Dutch Shell sells petroleum products through mixed companies in two dozen countries of the continent, and conducts oil production in a number of other countries (for example, in Nigeria it created a mixed company with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation).
In a report on China's participation in the development of the African energy sector, T. Deutsch (IAfr RAS) noted that, although since 1980, proven oil reserves in Africa have increased by 120% (from 57 to 124 billion barrels), and gas reserves by 140% (from 210 to 509 However, the oil production countries ' industrial refining capacity remained limited, and the level of domestic consumption remained low. Therefore, they (for example, Angola and Nigeria) prefer to export crude oil, and import refined oil at higher prices.
In total, by the beginning of 2012, there were about 500 oil companies operating in Africa, mostly Western ones, which had to make room for Asian companies. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), 10% of African oil was sent to China in 2007, 5% to India, and 14% and 8% respectively in 2011. In 2012, China received 9% of its oil imports from Angola alone. Over 90% of Chinese FDI in Africa is represented by large state-owned companies: Sinopec, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation", "China National Petroleum Corporation" (CNPC), "China National Offshore Oil Company" (CNOOC).
China will set up raw material processing plants, infrastructure facilities, and train personnel on the African continent. For example, CNPC invested $ 4 billion in the oil industry in Sudan, creating an oil industry in the country. The Merow hydroelectric power station has been built - the largest structure on the Nile after the Aswan dam. China Development Bank has provided Ghana with a loan of $ 3 billion, used for the construction of a gas pipeline, a terminal and a liquefied natural gas plant. Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation invested in coal deposits in Mozambique, Kinho Energy invested in a coal terminal in the port of Beira and a hydroelectric power station in Mozambique. In 2014, under an agreement with Zimbabwe, China Africa Sunlight invested $ 2 billion in an energy project involving the construction of a coal mine, a dam and two power plants (with a capacity of 300 MW each). China plans to invest in new energy projects until 2017. To date, solar power plants have already been installed in South Africa and Egypt.
E. A. Bragina (IMEMO RAS) highlighted the fact that the country is trying to solve its internal problems caused by a significant gap between the economy's needs for raw hydrocarbons and its own level of production when it enters the struggle for the oil market in Africa. (As of 2013, India's daily oil consumption was 3,292,000 barrels, while its production was 972,000 barrels. The deficit is covered by imports: spending on oil imports almost doubled in 2009-2012. To avoid supply disruptions, India is building expensive underground oil storage facilities. The advantages of Indian business are that, along with financial resources, it has modern technologies in the field of oil production, including on the offshore. India's practice in training workers for the oil fields, which is urgently needed in African countries, deserves attention.
The prospects for developing oil and gas fields in East Africa were assessed by N. F. Matveeva (IAfr.RAS) as quite broad. European companies (British BG Group, Ophir Energy, Tullow Oil, Norwegian Statoil, Exxon Mobile, Australia Independent Pancontinental Oil and Gas) and Asian companies (for example, China National Offshore Oil Company) that have experience in exploration and production activities. developing hydrocarbon reserves in the west and north of Africa, expanding their activities in the east of the continent.
China is counting on oil supplies from the Kenyan port of Lamu. Kenya, for its part, may reduce oil purchases from Iran, as well as from the United Arab Emirates (currently its main supplier). Uganda can reduce the import of petroleum products from the Mombasa refinery (Kenya) and become its own supplier to the foreign market. Tanzania will eventually become an exporter of liquefied natural gas. In particular, Russia's Gazprom plans to set up its supply to the markets of India and a number of other Asian countries. The use of a future pipeline from the Kenyan port of Lamu to South Sudan will allow the latter to achieve independence from its northern neighbor in oil exports.
The potential of shale gas resources in Africa has attracted particular attention of major global oil and gas companies in recent years. As L. N. Kalinichenko (IAfr.RAS) emphasized, its presence in sparsely populated areas of the continent is very attractive.-
This is a significant factor for these companies. At the same time, this is of interest to the African states themselves, both from the point of view of the possibility of replenishing their energy balance and the likely increase in export volumes in the future.
According to the results of geological surveys conducted by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), as well as data from African companies, a number of countries on the African continent have significant potential for shale gas resources: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. At the same time, Algeria and South Africa are among the top ten countries with the largest reserves of this type of raw material. However, the large-scale development of these unconventional gas sources with the current level of technology used for its extraction can lead to irreversible disruption of ecosystems and deterioration of the quality of life of the local population.
According to V. V. Pavlov (IAfr. RAS), new energy programs of the African Development Bank (Afr. BR) can play a significant role in financing energy projects and ensure more effective interaction between private foreign investors and African states in the implementation of these projects . These programs are aimed at ensuring that by 2030, consumers will have universal and uninterrupted access to grid electricity at affordable prices in all countries of Africa, including the least developed countries.
Possible ways to overcome the crisis in the electricity supply of the Republic of South Africa were considered in the report of Yu S. Skubko (IAfr. RAS). This is a key issue for the country's economy because no power plants have been built there since the apartheid era, which left South Africa with a legacy of almost half of the continent's total electricity production. Despite the well-developed hydroelectric power plant network, South Africa's electricity grid infrastructure has been operating at its maximum capacity since 2007. The energy crisis with periodic rolling blackouts and rationing of electricity supply disrupts the implementation of economic development plans and limits the average annual GDP growth to less than 2%.
Meanwhile, South Africa is a leader in Africa not only in electricity production, but also in environmental pollution, especially since coal is also burned in everyday life. Therefore, on those that are being prepared for commissioning in the coming years (although constantly postponed) Coal-fired thermal power plants are planned to have a high degree of emission cleaning. At the same time, eight nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 9.6 GW are planned to be put into operation in 2023-2030 to overcome coal energy dependence (there is one nuclear power plant in South Africa, built in 1984 by France). Preliminary agreements have been signed with Russia, France, China and South Korea on financing their construction. Rosatom's victory in the upcoming tender is possible only if its loan offers turn out to be very profitable for South Africa. It should be noted that the development of solar energy has begun, in which the Russian company Renova also takes part.
The electricity crisis is having a negative impact on South Africa's overall industrial development. According to V. Yu Kukushkin (IAfr. RAS), we can talk about deindustrialization in some divisions of metallurgy in the Republic of South Africa. The country is a leader in the volume of proven world reserves of chromium ore (77%) - the main raw material for the production of ferrochrome, which serves as the main semi-finished product for stainless steel smelting. The growth of annual chrome iron ore production in the XXI century accelerated sharply: from 16 to 34.4 million tons in the period from 2000 to 2013.
However, if in 2003 South Africa held the absolute world championship in the production of ferrochrome (more than 50%), then in 2008 it became the largest producer of ferrochrome in the world. it was already in the lead with 45%, and in 2013 it became the second (32%). China, which does not have its own industrial reserves of chrome ore at all, has taken the lead, relying entirely on imported raw materials, half of which is imported from South Africa.
The main problem of South African ferrochrome producers is recognized as the tension in the electricity balance of South Africa, since 2008. When it gets worse in winter, it provokes an increase in the cost of electricity and, consequently, an increase in costs in this energy-intensive industry (in 2007-2013, they more than doubled in this article alone). As a result, the competitiveness of ferrochrome products in the global market decreases. In recent years, South Africa's vertically integrated ferrochrome production facilities have often been forced to decommission more than 30% of their ferrochrome smelting capacity.
during the winter period, exporting the products of its mining divisions, unenriched ore-mainly to China.
According to I. B. Matsenko (IAfr RAS), the recent trend towards deindustrialization is typical for most African countries. This is evidenced by the decline in the share of value added in manufacturing products: in the total domestic production of all of Africa, it has decreased over the past two decades from 15% to 10%. Therefore, one of the most important challenges that African States need to address in the short term is to find an opportunity to stop the process of deindustrialization and increase the role of manufacturing and modern services in the economy.
This is particularly important for ensuring employment. The significant economic growth that occurred in many sub-Saharan African countries in the 2000s was not accompanied by the creation of new jobs in high-performance and labor-intensive sectors of the economy (such as manufacturing), but mainly in extractive industries, agriculture and the low-productive informal service sector. Meanwhile, the ILO estimates that between 70 and 80% of workers in Tropical Africa have unprotected forms of employment (working in casual informal jobs and on farms for little or no pay, without social protection guarantees), which is the highest rate in the world.
Considering the institutional aspects of regulating raw material exports in Africa, Z. S. Novikova (IAfr. RAS) noted that in the foreseeable future it will remain important. This is due to the high dependence of developed countries on imports of raw materials, including strategic ones: the EU is 100% dependent on imports of 14 types of raw materials, which come mainly from Africa.
Meanwhile, relations between Africa and its traditional partners are fundamentally changing. The rapid development of industry in fast-growing economies, especially in China, is causing an unprecedented increase in their demand for raw materials. Accordingly, competition between the world's leading countries for African resources is intensifying. This forces the EU and the US to take serious measures, in particular, to develop laws that protect their interests, to modify relations with African countries. Under these conditions, it is necessary to create and improve an appropriate regulatory framework, strengthen state control over the operation of deposits, and ensure transparency in reports on the activities of foreign companies, including information on their income, contract terms, tax payments, and publication of accounting statements.
V. E. Morozenskaya (IAfr. RAS) focused on the peculiarities and difficulties of state regulation of the mining industry in Africa. The contradictions that exist in this area are often caused by the clash of three groups of interests-government agencies, mining companies and private landowners - on issues of profit sharing and paying various types of taxes. Until now, most African Governments do not have the capacity to monitor compliance with fiscal laws and regulations due to their lack of appropriate mechanisms, so the responsibility for compliance with these rules falls on foreign companies.
The report of V. P. Morozov (IAfr. RAS) discussed in detail the topic of changing approaches to the role of industrial production in the development strategies of Sub-Saharan Africa (SAA). If in the second half of the last century the countries of the region solved the problems of decolonization and the choice of an independent path of development based on the principles of "self-reliance" (the Lagos Action Plan), then at the present stage the fundamental goal is recognized as accelerating economic growth and overcoming poverty and social backwardness. This is reflected both in international concepts and plans (for example, in the Millennium Declaration, the NEPAD program), and in the program documents of individual African countries and their regional associations. At the same time, the principles of relying on internal development resources have largely retained their priority.
After 2015, the main focus of international assistance for Africa's development will be the " Sustainable Development Goals "(SDGs), an important component of which is the structural transformation and modernization of the economy of African countries based on the promotion of manufacturing industries. So far, the volume of value added produced in industry in the MSA countries is low and, according to UNCTAD data
In 2010-2012, it averaged about 10% of GDP (compared to 20-22% in Asian countries). The structure of value added produced in the industry is dominated (50-55%) by low-tech farms engaged in processing natural raw materials. At the same time, the most dynamic growth in value added is observed in medium - and high-tech industries (for example, in petrochemicals and electrical engineering). Agriculture remains the leading manufacturing sector for many CAA countries: the share of the food and snack industry in GDP is on average about 6%. In a number of countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ghana, etc.), exports of this industry are an important source of foreign exchange earnings.
Work is currently under way on the pan-African "Agenda 2063", which is a 50-year transformative development agenda that calls for the industrialization and modernization of the economic life of African countries, especially the least developed countries, as a prerequisite for achieving its goals.
The implementation of this program is impossible without overcoming the acute energy crisis experienced by African countries. Meanwhile, according to E. N. Korendyasov (IAfr. RAS), the situation in the energy sector of the continent can be qualified as depressing: the installed capacity of all existing power plants is 114 GW (which is comparable to similar indicators of Germany, whose population is 14 times smaller than in Africa). Per capita electricity consumption in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is only 457 kWh (excluding South Africa-124 kWh) per year, while the average for developing countries is 1,155 kWh. Only 30% of the population has access to electricity.
Power plants usually run on coal and diesel fuel, and their equipment is morally and physically outdated. Due to frequent emergency power outages, industrial enterprises in the SSA countries lose 56 days per year (in the United States, 1 day in 10 years). The efficiency of solar panels operating on the continent is still very low. In this situation, since the early 2000s, there has been an increased interest in nuclear energy on the continent. 16 states have announced plans to build nuclear power plants, but only Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa are beginning to implement them. Currently, Africa has 1 nuclear power plant and 10 research reactors (including those built by the USSR) in Egypt, Libya, Ghana, DRC, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa.
By 2030, 17-20 nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 16,000 MW are expected to be built in Africa. This area opens up prospects for expanding cooperation between Russia and Africa in the energy sector. South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria are particularly promising partners for Russia. The construction of nuclear power plants involves a large initial investment, but their further operation is free of charge (the simplest nuclear power plant - Brest-runs on spent fuel).
Russia's Rosatom is one of the world's three largest companies with advanced technologies (along with France's Areva and Toshiba-Westinghouse). At the same time, it is advantageous for Russia to conclude a contract for the construction of at least 5-6 reactors. An agreement was signed between the Russian Federation and Egypt on the construction of a single-unit nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1000-1200 MW. There may be certain prospects for the Russian Federation and Nigeria.
Competition has developed for the construction of nuclear power plants in South Africa. In 2007, an agreement was signed between South Africa and the Russian Federation on the supply of enriched uranium to cover 43% of South Africa's needs by 2018. Russia, together with South African companies, is ready to create a nuclear cluster with a full-scale production cycle, including obtaining nuclear fuel, engineering and industrial production of complex equipment. Rosatom undertakes to build 6-8 reactors based on the latest technologies and carry out their maintenance, including the supply of fuel cells for the entire life cycle of nuclear power plants. In addition, it is planned to achieve the maximum territorial concentration of facilities, which will create 15 thousand jobs on them and up to 150 thousand in related industries, as well as promote the training of qualified personnel (only 200 qualified workers and 1000 specialists are needed to maintain nuclear power plants). For the implementation of this project, the Russian Federation undertakes to provide a preferential state loan in the amount of 70-80% of the construction cost (40-50 billion US dollars). September 22, 2014 A framework Intergovernmental agreement on strategic partnership between Russia and South Africa in the field of nuclear energy and industry was signed.
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