The government says petroleum must build Namibian businesses, infrastructure and wider industry. Turning that ambition into reality requires something less glamorous but decisive: deciding where gas will go, how it will get there, and who can use the infrastructure.
So far in this series, I have argued that Namibia’s natural gas could create value far beyond export revenues – through electricity, industry, jobs, local companies, hydrogen, renewables and wider economic development.
We have seen that not all gas is the same, and that decisions about which fields are developed, how quickly reserves are produced, and how much gas is available domestically should not simply emerge from the momentum of oil development.
The government has now made clear that it sees the destination in similarly broad terms.
Speaking at the Namibia Oil and Gas Conference, vice president Lucia Witbooi, on behalf of the president, stressed that petroleum should create jobs, firms, skills, infrastructure and wider national value rather than become an enclave.
Kornelia Shilunga, special adviser and head of the Upstream Petroleum Unit in the Presidency, went further into how that ambition may be delivered.
She said petroleum development must create meaningful opportunities for Namibians; local content must go beyond participation for its own sake; and Namibian companies should develop the capacity, expertise and financial strength to compete within petroleum and ultimately beyond it.
She also identified Walvis Bay and Lüderitz as potential service and logistics hubs and emphasised the importance of ports, roads, airports, supply bases and other infrastructure keeping pace with upstream development.
That is an important convergence.
The question is, therefore, becoming less about whether petroleum should connect to the wider Namibian economy and more about how that connection will be built.
A domestic market obligation can reserve gas for Namibia. A pricing policy can help determine whether local electricity and industry can afford it.
But neither can move a single molecule.
Gas needs pipelines, processing facilities, storage, ports, power, water and other supporting infrastructure. Where those facilities are built, how large they are, who owns them and who has access can shape Namibia’s industrial geography for decades.
The temptation is to allow each petroleum project to answer those questions for itself. An operator develops a field and builds whatever infrastructure best serves that project.
Commercially, that is understandable.
Nationally, it may be too narrow.
The first pipeline can influence where future industries locate. The first processing plant can determine which later gas discoveries are economic.
Infrastructure built too small may become a bottleneck; infrastructure built too large without credible future supply can become a stranded asset.
The first field should not automatically be allowed to design Namibia’s entire gas geography.
That is particularly important if the government wants petroleum to become, as Shilunga put it, an anchor for wider industrial development.
Natural gas, hydrogen, renewable energy, mining and ports require many of the same supporting services: power, water treatment, storage, laboratories, maintenance, emergency response, environmental monitoring, communications, logistics and skilled people.
Why build separate systems where properly designed common infrastructure can serve several industries?
The same logic applies to local companies.
A workshop depending on one drilling campaign faces uncertainty when activity slows.
A maintenance company, laboratory, training facility or logistics base able to serve petroleum, mining, hydrogen and renewable projects has a larger and more durable market.
That gives Namibian firms a stronger reason to invest in equipment, certification and people.
Regional integration can extend that market further. Namibia’s firms should not be developed only to serve Namibia.
If they build internationally competitive capability, regional integration and wider African trade can allow them to sell services into Angola, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa and beyond.
Infrastructure ownership matters too.
Some energy activities, particularly exploration, carry very high risk. Pipelines, ports, storage, industrial water systems and similar utility-type assets can have very different risk profiles once customers and revenues are secured.
Properly structured, some may, therefore, offer opportunities for Namibian pension funds, mutual funds and other institutional savings.
That creates another way for ordinary Namibians to participate – not only as employees or contractors, but as investors.
Access must also be considered.
If one company controls the only realistic pipeline or processing route, what happens when another field is discovered?
Can another producer use it? Can a Namibian manufacturer obtain gas through it? At what tariff?
These are the practical questions behind terms such as “common-user infrastructure” and “third-party access”.
The objective is not to prevent private investment. It is to prevent infrastructure designed around the first project from unintentionally limiting the value of projects and industries that follow.
The government has said it wants investment while protecting Namibia’s national interest. Infrastructure policy is one of the places where those objectives must meet.
But there is an important limit.
The government cannot simply decide that a preferred quantity of gas should land at a preferred location on a preferred date without understanding what is happening inside the reservoir.
The gas may be needed to support oil recovery. Its availability may change over time. Producing it differently may affect how much oil or condensate is ultimately recovered.
The next article, therefore, asks a question that should interest every Namibian, even though the answer begins deep beneath the seabed: when an operator says gas must be reinjected, delayed or produced in a particular way, who independently checks that technical answer – and how does Namibia know that the choice also protects the national interest?
– Anthony Paul is a senior energy governance, policy and strategy adviser.
