Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia will continue to cooperate with African countries to develop energy projects across the continent.
He said over many years, Soviet and Russian specialists have designed and built large energy centres in Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia and other countries of the continent with a total capacity of 4.6 gigawatts.
Mr Putin emphasised that this is just a quarter of Africa’s hydropower capacity.
Mr Putin, who was addressing African heads of state and the African Business Community at the Second Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, said Russian companies are currently implementing new mutually beneficial projects aimed at meeting the growing needs of the African economies for fuel and generating capacity, to provide Africans with access to affordable and reliable, sustainable and environmentally friendly energy sources.
“More than 30 promising energy projects with Russian participation in 16 African states are now in varying degrees of development.
“The total capacity of the power projects we are working on is about 3.7 gigawatts. Our company “RusHydro” offers a wide range of services to African partners from the design and supply of equipment to the modernisation and construction of new turnkey generation facilities,” he added.
Continuing, Mr Putin mentioned that Russian companies notably Gazprom, Rosneft, Lukoil, and Zarubezhneft are all engaged in the development of oil and gas fields in Algeria, Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo.
According to him, exports of Russian crude oil, petroleum products and liquefied natural gas to Africa have increased by 2.6 times over the past two years.
Touching on nuclear, Mr Putin said Rosatom, which is the leading company in the use of nuclear energy, is building the El Dabaa nuclear power plant in Egypt, adding, “At the same time, our state corporation can provide African countries with its unique experience and technologies that have no analogues in the world in the field of non-energy use of the “peaceful atom”, for example, in medicine and the same agriculture.”
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com