By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
At the 2025 Invest In African Energies, IAE, in Paris, Mike Sangster, TotalEnergies Senior Vice President for Sub-Saharan Africa highlighted the TotalEnergies Multi-Energy Strategy in a one-on-one conversation with Amernia Hernandez, TotalEnergies Correspondent, Reuters, covered by The Energy Republic.
Sangster provided insights about TotalEnergies’ legacy assets in Africa and the latest updates on the company’s upcoming projects in the continent, which are now a major talking point in the oil and gas industry.
In the oil sector, TotalEnergies continues to invest in established markets such as Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and Angola, as well as in emerging markets such as Namibia, Uganda, and South Africa.
According to Sangster, TotalEnergies’ African portfolio constitutes half of the company’s operated production globally.
“The largest part of our exploration budget is also in Africa,” he revealed.
Sangster said TotalEnergies has four major legacy assets in Africa, listing Nigeria, Angola, Congo, and Gabon as the current players in the company’s African exploration and production activities.
“We are producing over a million barrels of oil per day from these countries. That’s half of our global production output,” he explained.
However, he noted that TotalEnergies is currently developing new projects in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.
The TotalEnergies Uganda project includes the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects, which are estimated to produce 1.4 billion barrels of crude oil over 20 years. It includes the development of six fields and the drilling of around 400 wells from 31 locations.
The Tilenga Project is operated by TotalEnergies (56.67%), in partnership with CNOOC (28.33%) and UNOC (15%).
In Tanzania, TotalEnergies also owns the cross-border East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which will transport oil production from the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects in Uganda’s Lake Albert basin to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania.
“We are progressing well on Uganda’s Tilenga field and EACOP pipeline projects, while our Mozambique LNG project is currently in force majeur.
Meanwhile, TotalEnergies is committed to supporting capacity building across the markets in which it operates. Sangster explained that through projects such as Tilenga, TotalEnergies has generated around 20,000 direct jobs in Uganda and Tanzania.
“We are also training 200 local people. These are high-paying jobs that will be there for the next 20 years.”
In Nambia, TotalEnergies operates two deep offshore exploration blocks, including Block 2913B. TotalEnergies owns a 45.25% interest in offshore block 2913B, which contains the Venus discovery, alongside QatarEnergy (35.25%), Africa Oil’s Impact Oil and Gas (9.5%), and Namibia’s state-owned NAMCOR (10%).
TotalEnergies and its joint venture (JV) partners are making progress in developing the oil fields offshore Namibia. The company’s target is to produce first oil by 2029 through its Venus project in Namibia. A field development plan is currently underway, with plans to make a final investment decision by Q4 2026. Given the complexity of the deepwater project, Venus will target oil production.
“The site is extremely remote, 300 km offshore and at a depth of 1,900 m,” Sangster said, highlighting that much of the associated gas discovered would need to be reinjected.
“We have drilled part of our exploration wells in Namibia,” Sangster acknowledged.
“We also have acreages in South Africa. We intend to start drilling by 2026. These make up our new projects in Africa.
“Africa represents the largest part of our exploration budgets.”
Speaking on TotalEnergies’ multi-energy strategy in the African gas sector, Sangster said that the company is investing in gas and LNG projects.
Monetizing Africa’s natural gas resources through LNG deployment and flare reduction represents a core part of TotalEnergies’ African strategy. “Part of our growth target is focused on LNG,” Sangster said, adding that the company finished routine flaring in Nigeria, Gabon, and Angola. In the Republic of Congo, we will eliminate flaring this year.”
In Nigeria, TotalEnergies is ramping up gas investments to support both local energy needs and exports. “It’s important to monetize gas and its reservoirs,” Sangster noted. “There are significant reserves and we are actively developing this sector. There are high-quality fields that can also serve export markets.”
He said TotalEnergies sanctioned the Ubeta gas project in Nigeria in 2024, an onshore field to supply gas in the domestic gas market and Nigeria LNG (NLNG) plant.
“TotalEnergies has been supplying gas to fertilizer plants, mini-LNG plants, and the domestic market in Nigeria.
“We are also investing in Nigerian gas through the NLNG. We are building the 7th train of NLNG and we will continue to develop gas projects in Nigeria to feed the train.
In his words, Sangster acknowledged the new policy alignment and executive orders initiated by the Nigerian government, under President Tinubu’s administration to streamline processes as well as create an enabling business environment, incentives for investors and companies to operate efficiently in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria.
“Nigeria has been the largest oil producer in Africa for many years. The government realized they had lots of gas that needed to be monetized.
“The Nigerian government has put in place some policy improvement on non-associated gas.
“It has encouraged companies like TotalEnergies to develop more gas projects for domestic and export markets.
“This is a good move from the Nigerian government and we will see more projects coming onstream from TotalEnergies in the next few months,” he disclosed.
In Nigeria, TotalEnergies works closely with local educational institutions to transfer skills and enhance capacity building. “In Nigeria, we have the Petroleum Institute, and we’re fully committed to developing capacity in the country,” Sangster said. These initiatives not only support the development of projects but create tangible opportunities for local communities.”
In addition, he maintained that TotalEnergies is producing more energy in a sustainable way, which also aligns with the company’s targets for carbon C02 per barrel.
Sangster reiterated TotalEnergies’ commitment to continue investing in Africa like in other parts of the world where it operates, stating that the company isn’t moving away from Africa.
Beyond oil and gas investments, TotalEnergies’ broader energy strategy includes the development of renewable energy projects. Sangster reiterated TotalEnergies’ rebranding from an oil major to a multi-energy company, stating that it makes sense to expand integrated energy activities.
“We have invested in renewables, green hydrogen, and even mining in Africa. The future of our industry is integrated energy combined with new technologies to meet growing demand sustainably,” he added.