Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has emerged the next president of the African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO).

Kachikwu was announced the president of APPO, an organisation of African countries producing petroleum, on Monday in Abuja, and should lead it to the next phase of its operation which would include re-strategising for the emerging challenges of the global oil industry. He took over from Michel Boukar, a Chadian.

APPO was founded in 1986 in Lagos, with its headquarters in Brazzaville in the Congo. It currently comprises 14 member countries which include Algeria, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Libya, and Nigeria.

Altogether, these countries account for virtually the totality of Africa’s oil and gas reserves and output.

The founding of APPO was reportedly spearheaded by Nigeria as an effort to mitigate its dependence on western technology and western markets for oil export revenues. The objective of APPO was to promote cooperation in petrochemical research and technology. (ThisDay)