Africa launches its own energy bank in Abuja as Western lenders retreat from oil

Afreximbank and the African Petroleum Producers' Organization formally established the Africa Energy Bank at its inaugural general meeting in Abuja on October 31, ending more than four years of preparation that ran roughly 20 months behind schedule. The new institution carries $5 billion in authorized capital, of which about $500 million has been mobilized — Afreximbank contributed $222 million and Nigeria between $100 million and $200 million.

The bank exists because other lenders declined the business. Western development institutions have spent years tightening climate screens on oil and gas finance, and African producers have answered by building a lender with no screens at all. Its mandate covers the entire energy value chain — exploration and production, transport, refining, cross-border pipelines, power generation and transmission — and it aims to mobilize up to $10 billion in its first phase, funding at least three projects from 2027, starting with regional refineries and pipelines.

The demand behind it is large: roughly 600 million Africans lack electricity, and the continent needs an estimated $200 billion in energy investment. Between 2012 and 2021, Africa received about $35 billion a year in energy finance from G20 countries and multilateral development banks, according to a Carnegie report. Renewable money still arrives — Nigeria launched a $300 million fund for solar mini-grids in September, and climate tech startups raised $1.2 billion across the continent in 2025 — but more than two-thirds of that year's energy funding came as loans from development lenders and commercial banks.

The gap opened by the Western retreat has not stayed empty. China's Export-Import Bank and China Development Bank have lent $182 billion across Africa since 2000, mostly into energy, much of it on the 'Angola Model' — loans repaid in oil, copper and critical minerals, with resources sold directly to Chinese buyers or posted as collateral. Chinese suppliers add vendor financing insured by Sinosure, letting African governments buy equipment and pay over time. The retreat from fossil lending did not leave African oil unfunded; it left the terms to be set elsewhere.

The bank's first president is Helmy Ghazi, formerly deputy chief executive of HSBC Bank Egypt, and its board is drawn from the public sector, private sector and policy institutions. Its founders promise a 'just energy transition' in which African governments set the pace; the first three projects, from 2027, are regional refineries and pipelines.