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Regulation for Upstream Sustainable Development in Africa: Key Perspectives from AFRIPERF and OGDC Workshop

Posted: 17 Sep 2026

By Oluwatobi Adebisi and Precious Chukwudi

 

Africa’s upstream petroleum sector is navigating a regulatory environment shaped by competing priorities. Governments and regulators are seeking to attract investment and strengthen local content while also advancing decarbonisation, reducing methane emissions and gas flaring, and preparing for the sector’s longer-term transition.

Against this backdrop, the Regulation for Upstream Sustainable Development in Africa workshop convened upstream regulators from across the continent alongside operators, international organisations, technical experts and other stakeholders to examine how regulatory frameworks can respond to these evolving priorities.

The workshop was convened by the African Petroleum Regulators Forum (AFRIPERF) and the Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter (OGDC), with facilitation by Shell International.

VIISAUS participated in the engagement, represented by Tijani Nwadei, Co-Founder & Partner, and Oluwatobi Adebisi, Management Consultant.

The engagement provided an opportunity to capture and synthesise perspectives emerging from different African petroleum markets, with particular attention to the regulatory considerations shaping investment, sustainability and the future development of the upstream sector.

The team subsequently consolidated key discussions and emerging perspectives from the workshop into a concise knowledge product, bringing together insights from the engagement for stakeholders navigating Africa’s changing upstream regulatory landscape.

The discussions highlighted the increasingly interconnected nature of the priorities shaping Africa’s upstream petroleum sector. Investment competitiveness, local content, emissions reduction and energy transition are no longer separate considerations for regulators. They increasingly intersect within the policy and regulatory decisions that will shape the sector’s development.

For petroleum-producing countries, this creates a complex regulatory balancing act. Frameworks must remain sufficiently attractive to support investment and sector development while responding to growing expectations around environmental performance, emissions management and sustainability.

These choices will have implications beyond individual regulatory requirements. They can influence investment decisions, the competitiveness of petroleum markets, the development of local capabilities and the ability of African producers to respond to changes in the global energy landscape.

As these priorities continue to evolve, the effectiveness of Africa’s upstream regulatory frameworks will increasingly depend on how well they reconcile investment, development and sustainability objectives.

Understanding how regulators across different markets are approaching these challenges is therefore critical to anticipating the direction of the continent’s petroleum sector and the policy choices that will shape its future.

VIISAUS continues to support organisations and stakeholders in navigating complex policy, regulatory and sectoral developments through research, strategic analysis and knowledge products.

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