Uganda’s Mugisha, Ghana’s Faibille For WAIPEC Conference in Lagos

Frank Mugisha and Egbert Faibille Jnr, heads of the petroleum regulatory agencies in Uganda and Ghana respectively, are expected to join dozens of leading industry personalities at the two day West African International Petroleum Conference starting in Lagos Wednesday, February 7, 2018.

Mugisha, who is acting Commissioner at the Petroleum Directorate in Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, will be speaking in a panel titled ‘Africa Overview’, scheduled for 12 noon on Wednesday. His participation is expected to provide new information about Uganda’s large scale oil development, the 200,000BOPD Lake Albert Basin project, scheduled for financial close sometime in 2018.

Faibille, the new head of Ghana’s Petroleum Commission, will be sharing experience from his country’s strategies for funding local content much later in the day. Ghana is one of a couple of countries where final investment decisions have been taken on sizeable oil and gas projects since the 2014 oil price collapse.

Expected on the local content panel with Faibille are, naturally, Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development Management Board and Michael Kimbi Tchenga, Head of Trade, Department for International Trade, British High Commission, Cameroon.

One other notable guest from Ghana at this second edition of the annual West African talkshop is Juliette Twumasi-Anokye, Managing Partner, Anojul Afrriyie & Co. Eight years ago, Twumasi-Anokye was part of the foundation team at her country’s Petroleum Commission, and for a while, was both the commission’s public face and go-to-person, before the Government appointed Theo Ahwireng, the first head of the commission.

There is André Hue, Deputy Country Director, AFD, the French Development Agency, in Nigeria and Ainslie Boswell, a South African, who works in Nigeria as Business Development Consultant (oil & Gas Engineering) for the Engineering firm, Megchem.

Speaker line up at the event includes all the heads of the major oil companies operating in Nigeria, as well as the leading indigenous E&P operators, but it is overwhelmingly local, for a conference with a pan regional title (West Africa International Petroleum Conference) and regional theme ”Innovention” – Sustaining West African oil and gas production through innovation and collaboration.

Other speakers include Kayode Pitan, Managing Director, Bank of Industry, Nicolas Terraz, Managing Director, TOTAL Exploration & Production, Nigeria, Paul McGrath, Lead Country Manager, ExxonMobil Upstream Companies in Nigeria, Oluwafemi Adesanya, Senior Trade Advisor, Department for International Trade, British Deputy High Commission, Dolapo Oni, VP/Head, Energy Research, Ecobank Development Company (EDC) Nigeria Ltd Austin Uzoka, Nigerian Content Manager, SNEPCo, Okunola Odusote, Managing Director, Popham Walter Odusote Ltd and a host of others

The conference will be opened with three keynote speeches: (1)by Maikanti Baru, Chief Executive of the Nigerian state hydrocarbon company, NNPC; (2)Senator Donald Alasoadura, Chairman, Petroleum – Upstream Sector, Nigeria Senate Committee and (3) Austin Avuru, Chief Executive Seplat Petroleum Development Nigeria.