MSGBC Conference to Feature Roadshow on Mauritanian Exploration Opportunities.

A special session on Mauritania’s exploration prospects during the MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2023 conference will delve into a range of topics, from geology to investment incentives and ongoing developments.

Mauritania is making great strides to attract foreign investment across its untapped upstream market, introducing a 15-block offshore licensing round; strengthening geological surveying and data acquisition; while promoting collaboration between Mauritanian and global partners. The country’s upstream prospects will be further explored during the MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2023 conference and exhibition (https://apo-opa.info/479O0lz), scheduled for November 21-22 this year.

In an exclusive panel session titled, ‘Focus on Mauritania: Road Show on Exploration & Opportunities’, a suite of Mauritanian policymakers, global E&P investors and regional stakeholders will engage in pivotal discussions and strategic planning on Mauritania’s upstream sector. For potential players looking at tapping into one of the world’s final frontiers for offshore exploration, the Mauritanian exploration roadshow is a not-to-be-missed event.

The Mauritanian Coastal Basin, an area with an extensive 2D and 3D seismic data coverage – covering more than 100,000 km, respectively – has become a focal point for exploration in recent years. The discovery of the Chinguetti oilfield in 2001 marked the opening of the tertiary petroleum system in the basin, while the 2015 GTA gas discovery in Block C8 unveiled deeper Cretaceous petroleum systems. These breakthroughs, coupled with growing global demand for oil and gas, emphasize the country’s evolving energy potential and growing prominence, and the Mauritanian roadshow will provide insight into the country’s unique offshore geological features.

The exploration session will serve as a bridge connecting government decision-makers, data experts, and industry players, providing a unique platform to exchange insights, share vital information, and outline the future trajectory of energy exploration and development in Mauritania. The panel of experts will delve into a series of essential topics that collectively form a holistic view of Mauritania’s exploration perspectives.

Serving to connect investors with Mauritanian opportunities, the session will provide an overview of Mauritania’s business environment and investor safeguards, showcasing the country’s commitment to creating a secure investment climate. The legal investment framework and the benefits and exemptions in promotional zones will be highlighted, emphasizing how these incentives can foster business growth. Correspondingly, details of the country’s latest bid licensing round, which features 15 offshore blocks, will be provided, connecting new players to the country’s promising yet untapped acreage.

Under efforts to promote exploration and production, the Mauritanian Government revised the legal and regulatory framework, implementing tax rules and exemptions to entice foreign and regional players. Through the Petroleum Code – introduced in 1998 and revised in 2011 – the Government sought to incentivize foreign investment in upstream activities, enhancing transparency, clarity and productivity across the hydrocarbons market. Regulatory revisions continue to be made, and in addition to geological insight, the Mauritanian session this November will provide a comprehensive overview of the country’s investment environment, equipping potential investors with the information they need to make informed decisions.

Efforts to enhance investment attractiveness have already translated into several key milestones, with a number of foreign players exploring the offshore market. International heavyweights to the likes of bp, Kosmos Energy, TotalEnergies, Shell, and many more now operate in this region, signaling the growing significance of Mauritania in the global energy landscape. These and many other players are looking at fostering new partnerships, and the session will offer insights into promising prospects and collaborations, illustrating the exciting potential of Mauritania’s energy sector.

MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2023 is a crucial milestone for the energy sector, bringing together key stakeholders, policymakers, and industry experts to discuss the most recent exploration opportunities in the region. The Mauritanian exploration roadshow, for its part, acts as a catalyst for information exchange and partnerships, and will greatly contribute to the MSGBC region’s long-term energy success.

Organized by Energy Capital & Power, the conference takes place under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani and in partnership with Mauritania’s Ministry of Petroleum, Energy and Mines; the Mauritanian Oil and Mining Company; Petrosen; COS-Petrogaz; and the African Energy Chamber. Register now to secure your place!

CrossBoundary Access open sources project financing tools used to finance over $80m of mini grids in Africa

CrossBoundary Access, in partnership with Shell Foundation, the UK-registered charity, is open sourcing the project financing tools they have used to structure and finance over $80m of mini-grid projects.

Mini grids are the least cost method to provide electricity to 260 million people in Africa and have a critical role in achieving universal energy access on the continent; However, mini grids are complex infrastructure assets. It typically takes 12-24 months to structure and finance a mini grid project; CrossBoundary Access (​CrossBoundary.com/Access) is open sourcing the project financing tools they have used to finance over $80m of mini-grid projects to accelerate universal energy access in Africa.

CrossBoundary Access, in partnership with Shell Foundation, the UK-registered charity, is open sourcing the project financing tools they have used to structure and finance over $80m of mini-grid projects. CrossBoundary Access has shared a project finance model on its website today (https://apo-opa.info/49gLCLC) and will share template project financing term sheets later this year. CrossBoundary Access believes open sourcing financial tools and approaches across the sector will accelerate the flow of capital needed to achieve universal energy access in Africa.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa without power – 600 million – will be largely unchanged by 2030. Mini-grids – self-sufficient electricity grids that can serve households and businesses – have a critical role to play in bridging the gap. They are the least-cost method to bring electricity to over 260 million people.

However, mini grids are complex infrastructure assets that typically take 12-24 months to finance. Mini grids are small (typically less than $500,000 in capex), have unfixed long-term cash flows such as revenue, diesel expenditure, battery replacements, etc., and are typically mixed with other non-infrastructure assets and activities. The process of ring-fencing mini-grid assets into standalone investment vehicles, and fixing and allocating revenues, costs, and risks over a typical 10–20-year infrastructure investment horizon is a highly intensive process. Detailed, interlocking financial models and project contracts are required to create bankable mini-grid projects.

CrossBoundary Access is open sourcing the two interlocking financing tools it has developed over the last 6 years – a financial model and project term sheets – to accelerate the flow of capital into the mini-grid sector. The open-source movement was first pioneered by the software industry in the 1990s. CrossBoundary Access believes the energy access sector should adopt its own open source model to accelerate industry collaboration. Continuous sharing and improvement of the sector’s financing tools is needed to attract and deploy capital into mini grids.

Read more on why CrossBoundary Access and Shell Foundation believe open source can accelerate universal energy access in Africa in this article (https://apo-opa.info/47fIoGf).

Terry Otinga, Senior Investment Associate and Open-Source lead at CrossBoundary Access, says, “We are excited to share these tools and are especially eager to exchange lessons learnt with developers and investors. This will bring us a step closer to closing the energy access gap in Africa. That’s what open source is about.”

Kwaku Owusu-Achaw, Business Development Director at the Shell Foundation, says, “We are thrilled to partner with CrossBoundary Access to share this innovative financing approach. We hope that this is useful for the sector and gives developers the tools to raise capital and improve energy access in Africa.”

Humphrey Wireko, Managing Director at CrossBoundary Access, says, “We appreciate Shell Foundation’s support in this initiative. In order to reach the 300 million people in Africa best served by mini-grids, we need a lot more mini-grids being built and more investors providing capital to this sector. Hopefully this helps make that happen.”

About CrossBoundary Access:
CrossBoundary Access (​CrossBoundary.com/Access) is Africa’s first blended finance platform for mini grids. CrossBoundary Access uses an innovative blended finance approach to invest in mini-grids and provide 24/7 grid-quality power to households and businesses in rural Africa. CrossBoundary Access reached first close in June 2022 with $25 million from ARCH Emerging Markets Partners Limited, Bank of America, and Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund. In September 2023, the platform secured an additional $10 million from AfDB’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA). CrossBoundary Access continues to raise and deploy a total of $150 million of blended project finance over the next three years to bring clean energy to one million people in Africa. CrossBoundary Access is a member of the CrossBoundary Group. https://apo-opa.info/3skZIeb

About Shell Foundation:
Shell Foundation (https://ShellFoundation.org) is an endowed, UK-registered charity that catalyses clean energy innovation and unlocks inclusive investments in Africa and India, empowering millions of underserved customers – of which half are women – to earn a living income. Shell Foundation, with co-funding from the UK government through the FCDO, funded the open source project to encourage more investments in mini-grids, which can power whole communities, helping small business owners, rural agricultural households, and urban transporters, the key focus customer groups for the Foundation.

Stellantis to Become a Strategic Shareholder of Leapmotor with €1.5 Billion Investment and Bolster Leapmotor’s Global Electric Vehicle Business.

Stellantis will leverage Leapmotor’s tech-first EV ecosystem in China to help meet core Dare Forward 2030 electrification targets, while remaining open to exploring further synergies with its partner.

Leveraging the strengths of both companies, Stellantis (https://www.Stellantis.com​) and Leapmotor give birth to a strategic global relationship that aims at creating a highly competitive and highly efficient EV mobility powerhouse in China and around the world; Companies intend to establish the Leapmotor International joint venture designed to accelerate and expand global sales of Leapmotor’s high-tech, cost-efficient products by leveraging Stellantis’ extensive assets and commercial know-how around the globe; Leapmotor is among the fastest growing Chinese pure-play new energy vehicles (NEVs) tech leaders with a unique vertical integration model and full-suite of in-house R&D and manufacturing capabilities; Stellantis is one of the largest mobility companies, ranking among the most profitable and efficient automakers worldwide; Stellantis will leverage Leapmotor’s tech-first EV ecosystem in China to help meet core Dare Forward 2030 electrification targets, while remaining open to exploring further synergies with its partner; Stellantis’ investment enables it to acquire approximately 20% equity stake, making it a significant shareholder and giving it two Board of Directors seats.

Stellantis N.V. and Leapmotor today announced that Stellantis plans to invest ca. €1.5 billion to acquire approximately 20% of Leapmotor, making Stellantis a significant shareholder. The deal also outlines the formation of Leapmotor International, a 51/49 Stellantis-led joint venture that has exclusive rights for the export and sale, as well as manufacturing, of Leapmotor products outside Greater China. This will be an industry-first global electric vehicle relationship between a leading automaker and a Chinese pure-play NEV OEM.

The partnership aims to further boost Leapmotor’s sales in China, the biggest market in the world, while leveraging Stellantis’ established global commercial presence to significantly accelerate Leapmotor brand sales in other regions, starting with Europe. Stellantis intends to leverage Leapmotor’s highly innovative, cost-efficient EV ecosystem in China to help meet core Dare Forward 2030 electrification targets, with the possibility to further explore mutually beneficial synergies. The joint venture expects to begin shipments in the second half of 2024.

The two companies consider Leapmotor’s EV product offering to be complementary to Stellantis’ current technology and portfolio of iconic brands and will bring more affordable mobility solutions to global customers. Stellantis will have two seats on Leapmotor’s Board of Directors and will appoint the CEO of the Leapmotor International joint venture.

“As consolidation unfolds among the capable electric vehicles start-ups in China, it becomes increasingly apparent that a handful of efficient and agile new generation EV players, like Leapmotor, will come to dominate the mainstream segments in China,” said Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares. “We feel it’s the perfect time to take a leading role in supporting the global expansion plans of Leapmotor, one of the most impressive new EV players who has a similar tech-first, entrepreneurial mindset to ours. Through this strategic investment, we can address a white space in our business model and benefit from Leapmotor’s competitiveness both in China and abroad. I want to thank Mr. Zhu Jiangming and the teams from both sides of our great companies for their leadership and collaboration in creating this new opportunity for both of us.”

“Today it is a great milestone in Leapmotor’s history, and I am thrilled to witness this moment together with Mr. Tavares and his team,” said Leapmotor Founder and CEO Zhu Jiangming. “Developed with our in-house, full-suite technology capabilities, Leapmotor brings to the market the best-in-class EV products in a most cost competitive way. We believe in win-win partnerships formed by strong players in the fast-evolving environment. Working with Stellantis, we will continue to be innovative and creative in technology and business synergies and will bring Leapmotor EV cars to the global market.”

Focused on the mid-to-high end market, being the largest and fastest-growing segment in China, Leapmotor delivered approximately 111,000 NEV units in 2022, putting it into the first tier among China’s NEV pure-play automakers. In the next three years, Leapmotor’s product plan is expected to cover the full range of A- to-E segments, based on one technical architecture with three highly scalable platforms with BEV and Range Extender EV powertrains.

Leapmotor was the world’s first pure-play EV company to implement Cell-to-Chassis technology (https://apo-opa.info/491mto2) on a large scale, and its ‘Four-Leaf Clover’ (https://apo-opa.info/46Mt1Fu) Leap 3.0 central-controlled new electric and electronic architecture achieves seamless and efficient collaboration within the core components of smart EVs. Its unique vertical integration model maximizes scalability, enabling Leapmotor to quickly respond to customer needs.

Founded in early 2021, but combining more than a century of experience, Stellantis (https://www.Stellantis.com/) has 14 iconic automotive brands and two mobility businesses that aim to provide clean, safe and affordable freedom of mobility to all leveraging industrial operations in more than 30 countries with customers in more than 130 markets. In 2022, Stellantis shipped over 6 million vehicles with Net revenues of €179.5 billion and Net profit of €16.8 billion. In the first half of 2023 (https://apo-opa.info/40cc0SM), the Company had Net revenues of €98.4 billion and Net profit of €10.9 billion and one of the highest Adjusted operating income (AOI) margins in the industry at 14.4%.

Stellantis is investing more than €50 billion over the next decade in electrification to deliver on the Dare Forward 2030 (https://apo-opa.info/3SbMOK3) targets of reaching a 100% passenger car BEV sales mix in Europe and 50% passenger car and light-duty truck BEV sales mix in the United States by 2030. To achieve these sales targets, the Company is securing approximately 400 GWh of battery capacity, including support from six battery manufacturing plants in North America and Europe. Stellantis is on track to become a carbon net zero corporation by 2038, all scopes included, with single-digit percentage compensation of remaining emissions. In parallel to this strategic move, Stellantis remains committed to its asset-light business model for its foreign brands in China.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Investment Community Conference Call

Stellantis and Leapmotor will each separately host conference calls for their respective analysts and investors. Details on timing and instructions for accessing these events are available on the respective corporate websites’ investor relations pages (www.Stellantis.com and www.Leapmotor.com).