Speeches

Her Excellency Lucia Witbooih, President of the Republic of Namibia;
Honourable Modestus Amutse, Minister of Industries, Mines and Energy;
Auney AMUTENYA
Honourable Kornelia Shilunga, Special Advisor and Head of the Upstream Petroleum Unit, Office of the President;
His Excellency Dr Philip Mshelbila, Secretary General, Gas Exporting Countries Forum;
Mr Carlo McLeod, Deputy Head of the Upstream Petroleum Unit;
Ms Victoria Sibeya, Managing Director, NAMCOR;
Julia Muetudhana, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Namibian Investment Promotion and Development Board
Mr Travis Smithard, Chief Executive Officer, Rhino Resources;
Hanns Seidel Foundation, Hans Goerge bulor
Shakwa Nyambe SNC Incorporated;
Distinguished speakers, panellists, sponsors, exhibitors, delegates local and international, and members of the media;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Your Excellency, Honourable Ministers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: good morning, and welcome home.

Before I say anything else, indulge your host. By a show of hands: how many of you are at the Namibia Oil and Gas Conference for the very first time?
And now: whether it is your first time or your fourth time: how many of you have travelled from beyond our Namibian borders?

Look around you. You are very welcome. And our single mission over these three days is that you leave feeling not like visitors to Namibia, but like part of Namibia. Because people do business with people they trust, and trust begins with welcome. There is real power in hosting, which is why I am already looking forward to welcoming you, Namibian-style, at this eveining’s braai, a braii is barbaque that will be done in Namibian fashion.

But first, the why.
There is a question I am asked more than any other. Not what are we building here; a hydrocarbon industry, everyone can see that. The harder question, the honest one, is why. Why does a nation of three million people gather the majors, the ministers, the financiers and its own entrepreneurs into one room, year after year?

The answer is the reason I do this work at all: to transform, from scarcity to abundance, the lives of Namibians. The oil is not the point. The oil is the how. Our people are the why.

Those of you who were with us last year will remember I spoke of the bamboo tree. For the newcomers, quickly: you plant the bamboo, and for four long years: nothing. No shoot, no sign, nothing above the soil. And then, in the fifth year, it erupts: nearly thirty metres in a matter of weeks. Not because it grew overnight, but because for four unseen years, it was building roots.

Last year, I told you Namibia was that bamboo:patient underground, building the roots: the policy, the soon to come regulation, the institutions, the Upstream Petroleum Unit now seated in the Office of the President herself.

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you this year to tell you: the bamboo has broken the surface.

Venus. Graff. Mopane. Sagittarius. The Orange Basin: the conjugate twin of Brazil's pre-salt and Guyana: has announced itself to the world, and Namibia is now moving toward its first final investment decisions and its first oil this decade.

But hear me carefully, because the bamboo has few more lessons. Just two for today

Number one: the bamboo grows thirty metres in eight weeks only because it spent four years on its roots. Speed is earned by foundations. If we chase the shoot and neglect the root: if we let the oil flow past our people instead of through them, we will grow fast and fall faster. The world has a name for that: the resource curse. Namibia will not be the next resource curse.

Second: bamboo does not grow as a single root. It grows as a grove, one connected root system beneath the soil, every stalk feeding every other. The National Upstream Petroleum Local Content Policy, driven from the Office of the President, gives Namibianisation the force of national policy: Namibian employment maximised, Namibian suppliers prioritised, skills and technology transferred, and the part I have advocated for years from this very stage, meaningful Namibian participation, ownership and financing at every level of the sector. Despite the headlines, the pan-african approach to the sector will brith the sector for Namibia. The only biggest and largest challenge we have is not local content, skills, its each other.

Thirdly: And when the price cycles turn, and they will, remember the last thing the bamboo teaches us: it bends in the storm, and it does not break. Agility, co-opertation based on sound foundation, takes us forward. A people united, striving to achieve a common good for all the members of society, will always emerge victorious.

This is what the Economic Association of Namibia was built to do: to drive economic development, to thought lead, bring policy to business, and to insist, always, on inclusive growth. It is why, when I am asked whether Namibia has too many conferences, I brush it off. We are not competing platforms. We are complementary roots. And this platform holds to three non-negotiable values: broad access, local empowerment, industry development.

That is what sets this conference apart, not its size, though we have grown again this year to 1,500 delegates, 73 exhibitors and 40 sponsors, but the why beneath the size. The setas the exihibitio stands, the sessions are the roots in the same system.

Last year, we were roots. This year, we break the surface. Let the world watch what Namibia does next.

Your Excellency, Honourable Ministers, distinguished guests, welcome to the Namibia Oil and Gas Conference 2026. I thank you.