China’s NOCs plan renewed African growth

The current wave of investment comes after Africa’s importance as an energy supplier to China has declined in recent years

China’s NOCs are continuing to expand their upstream footprint in Africa—underscored by CNOOC’s recent bagging of contracts to explore blocks offshore Mozambique—as Beijing looks to help shore up African production to lock in future supplies. African hydrocarbons have remained of key interest to PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC since they were tipped four years ago to become collectively the fourth-biggest upstream investor in Africa over 2019–23, behind BP, Shell and Eni. Africa stood to capture nearly 30% of overseas upstream capex by the NOCs, amounting to c.$15b, consultancy GlobalData predicted in mid-2019. It is unclear if the NOCs have lived up to the billing, but they have not shied awa