• Africa’s deepwater oil and gas production is expected to increase significantly in the coming decade, driven by new discoveries and projects.
• Recent successes in Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire have spurred interest in deepwater exploration across the continent.
• Challenges such as security concerns and fiscal incentives need to be addressed to fully unlock Africa’s deepwater potential.

Africa’s deepwater segment has always played a key role in terms of adding significant discovered volumes, which has helped Africa sustain its hydrocarbon production.

The contribution of this segment in Africa’s hydrocarbon production mix was between 20- 25% last decade and is expected to increase between 35-40% by 2035.

From the under-construction and pre-FID projects, Rystad Energy estimates that there will be about 3.5 million boepd of new deepwater supply (pre-FID and under-construction projects) in Africa by 2035.

Success in countries such as Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire have triggered substantial interest in exploring the deep waters, and many more countries such as Sao Tome & Principe, Liberia and Sierra Leone are also becoming important countries for companies to secure acreages for exploration efforts in the medium and long term.