---
title: "Africa Has the Oil, the Gas and the Cobalt. It Does Not Have the Light Bulbs"
description: "The continent supplies the world’s battery minerals and 7.6 percent of its oil — and 86 percent of the people without electricity"
author: "Nate Ledger"
published: 2026-10-13T08:25:54Z
modified: 2026-10-13T19:02:32Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/africa-has-the-oil-the-gas-and-the-cobalt-it-does-not-have-t-59ea18
language: en
tags: ["energy", "infrastructure", "mining", "electricity", "renewables", "world", "business"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Africa Has the Oil, the Gas and the Cobalt. It Does Not Have the Light Bulbs

*The continent supplies the world’s battery minerals and 7.6 percent of its oil — and 86 percent of the people without electricity*

By Nate Ledger · October 13, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/africa-has-the-oil-the-gas-and-the-cobalt-it-does-not-have-t-59ea18

## In brief

- Africa holds about 125 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, 7.2% of the global total, with Libya and Nigeria holding nearly 70%
- African countries produced 71.2% of global cobalt and 72.4% of manganese in 2025; the DRC alone supplies nearly 70% of cobalt
- Ethiopia and the DRC generated all their electricity from renewables in 2024; Algeria, Libya, Niger and Tunisia under 5%
- Nigeria’s 85 million people without power are the largest of any country; South Sudan has just 5.4% access
- Over 560 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack electricity, about 86% of the global total, per the WHO

Here is a business model: you own the warehouse full of everything the world wants — oil, gas, the cobalt and manganese that go into electric-car batteries — and you sell it all, and then you go home and light a kerosene lamp because your house has no electricity. This is not a hypothetical. It is, roughly speaking, the situation of the African continent, and it is the backdrop for African Energy Week, the gathering of energy ministers, investors and oil executives running in Cape Town until October 16, where the agenda is investment in oil and gas, energy finance and ending energy poverty, in that order of comfort.

[Al Jazeera has mapped the numbers](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/13/mapping-africas-energy-wealth-and-560-million-who-remain-without-power), and the wealth side is real. Africa holds about 125 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, 7.2 percent of the global total — “proven” meaning discovered, commercially extractable with existing technology, still in the ground. Libya and Nigeria hold nearly 70 percent of that between them, with 48.4 billion and 36.9 billion barrels respectively; Algeria is third with 12.2 billion, then Angola with 7.78 billion, South Sudan with 3.75 billion and Egypt with 3.3 billion.

![A dark silhouette of Africa, partially filled with cream-colored liquid, connects by a curved hose to a burning oil lamp on a golden background.](https://rews.cc/img/fee457d444bed09b66749b8803e0eecdf26bf0f8.webp)

Reserves are one thing; pumping is another. Nigeria was Africa’s largest producer in 2024 with about 23 percent of output, Algeria and Angola about 17 percent each — together 56 percent of the continent’s oil, with the top five above 80 percent. All told, Africa produced 7.6 percent of the world’s crude, almost exactly its share of reserves, which is a neat way of saying the machinery works when politics allows. Libya, the biggest reserve-holder, ranks only fourth in production: political disputes and blockades keep interrupting the flow, even with Italy’s Eni, France’s TotalEnergies and Spain’s Repsol on the ground.

Gas tells a similar story: almost 18 trillion cubic metres of proven reserves at the end of 2023, with Nigeria and Algeria holding about 58 percent — they are also the leading exporters — followed by Mozambique with 2.84 trillion, Egypt with 2.21 trillion and Libya with 1.51 trillion. Mozambique’s reserves, found offshore in the 2010s, remain largely undeveloped, which is the polite energy-industry way of saying the money has not fully shown up.

![An open padlock contains an offshore oil rig above waves and a yellow flame below, with a yellow key beside it against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/bd0ec257bf3e75ec12c632bb76b12743d691e44d.webp)

## The battery business

Then there are the minerals the energy transition runs on. In 2025, African countries produced 71.2 percent of the world’s cobalt and 72.4 percent of its manganese. Nearly 70 percent of global cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some of it dug by hand by artisanal miners; Amnesty International has documented dangerous and often deadly conditions in some Congolese mines. South Africa supplies nearly 38 percent of the world’s manganese, Gabon nearly 25 percent, and with Ghana the three make up that 72.4 percent. Zimbabwe, Africa’s biggest lithium producer, accounted for 9.6 percent of global production, and Madagascar, Mozambique and Tanzania mined a combined 222,000 tonnes of natural graphite in 2025, 11.9 percent of the world total — graphite goes into the anodes of most lithium-ion batteries, and also, Al Jazeera notes, into pencils.

So the underground part works fine. The above-ground part is stranger. In 2024, Ethiopia and the DRC generated all of their electricity from renewables — mostly hydropower — and Uganda, Namibia and Eswatini each topped 96 percent. Ethiopia’s power comes largely from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, Africa’s biggest hydroelectric project, which began generating in 2022 and was officially inaugurated in September 2025. Meanwhile Algeria, Libya, Niger and Tunisia got less than 5 percent from renewables, relying on their own oil and gas.

![A hydroelectric dam shaped like an electrical outlet has a yellow cable plugged into it, with flowing water and nearby houses against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/48594f34d23e30bd41baf3b243e8ff25b3e76505.webp)

And now the punchline, which is not funny. In 2024, six African countries reported universal electricity access — Algeria, Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, Seychelles and Tunisia, together about 215 million people, roughly 14 percent of the continent’s population. In South Sudan, 5.4 percent of people had electricity. In Malawi, 15.6 percent. In the DRC — 100 percent renewable generation, remember — 22.5 percent: the grid exports the virtue and skips the villages. Nigeria, the most populous country and the biggest oil producer, had 62.5 percent access, leaving about 85 million people without power, the largest number of any country on Earth. In rural areas, families still light their homes with kerosene lamps, candles or torches. More than 560 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack electricity entirely, about 86 percent of the global total, according to the World Health Organization.

The conference in Cape Town will, as these conferences do, produce panels on unlocking investment. The unlock is genuinely hard: power stations and grids need capital, and capital wants stable politics and paying customers. But the distribution of the problem is worth sitting with. The cobalt leaves by the shipload. The electricity does not leave the dam. Somewhere between the two there is a contract — or the absence of one.