Namibia’s fast-emerging hydrocarbons story acquired a decidedly people-first tone in late July when the Youth in Oil & Gas Summit convened in Walvis Bay and its founder, Justina Erastus, urged leaders to move beyond rhetoric and open real pathways into jobs, apprenticeships and leadership for young Namibians. Her appeal landed at a pivotal moment: the country is working toward first oil late this decade while trying to ensure that benefits—skills, incomes and enterprise growth—reach the generation that will run the industry.
On the project front, Namibia remains a global exploration hotspot, with TotalEnergies’ Venus and Shell’s discoveries anchoring hopes for output around 2029–2030. Yet momentum has been mixed. Authorities now frame key final investment decisions around 2026, while companies re-benchmark costs and scope. Shell’s write-down earlier this year and the high gas content reported in parts of the Orange Basin underline the technical and commercial hurdles that could push some oil volumes into the 2030s, even as Venus still advances. The signal from policymakers and operators alike is that timelines are tightening, not accelerating—another reason youth preparation can’t wait.
Gas, meanwhile, is moving forward as a strategic complement. BW Energy has lined up the Deepsea Mira to appraise the Kudu field in the second half of 2025, part of a plan long aimed at gas-to-power for domestic use. Onshore, ReconAfrica has spudded a closely watched exploration well in the Kavango basin, keeping interest in Namibia’s frontier plays alive. Together these steps broaden the skills profile demanded by the sector—from drilling and geoscience to logistics, safety, metering, catering and environmental services.
Across Africa, local content policy is the lever many governments use to translate resource wealth into jobs. Nigeria’s Content Board continues to underwrite large youth training cohorts in marine, offshore and automation skills. Ghana’s local content regulations (L.I. 2204) provide a long-standing template for minimum targets in staffing, services and technology transfer. Namibia’s own scholarship efforts and industry partnerships can learn from, and plug into, these ecosystems to accelerate placement, certification and entrepreneurship for under-35s, especially women.
The sustainability context is impossible to ignore. Namibia’s leaders talk of universal electrification; World Bank data show access is improving but not yet complete, and the broader African picture remains stark: hundreds of millions still lack electricity and nearly four in five households in sub-Saharan Africa cook with polluting fuels. The International Energy Agency’s latest work outlines a credible pathway to scale clean cooking access—an area where gas, biogas and electric solutions can all create local jobs if supply chains and finance are built with youth enterprises in mind. Positioning young Africans to deliver mini-grids, metering, appliance efficiency, clean cooking distribution and gas-to-power operations would align the continent’s demographics with its development needs.
Justina Erastus, founder of the Youth in Oil and Gas Summit in Namibia, emphasizes focusing on practical entry points such as internships linked to active rigs and seismic campaigns; dual-training models that rotate trainees through operators, service firms, and regulators; SME finance for supplier start-ups; and transparent local-content scorecards that can turn summits into jobs and contracts. In parallel, universities and TVET institutions can co-design curricula with operators for instrumentation, digital subsurface, HSE, welding, and marine operations—fields that are immediately relevant to Venus appraisal, Kudu development, GTA-style LNG operations, and pipeline construction elsewhere on the continent.
Africa’s energy moment will be judged not only by barrels and cubic feet but by whether a 60-percent-under-25 continent converts resource projects into inclusive careers. Namibia’s youth platform places that challenge squarely on the table: give young people the first rung—paid traineeships, industry-recognized credentials, and procurement opportunities—and they will climb. As timelines firm up for offshore oil, gas-to-power and regional LNG, the window is open now for policy, industry and educators to make that promise real.
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