The African Energy Chamber (AEC) is protesting what it sees as discrimination by Western lenders in supporting the continent’s oil and gas projects, with owners and investors forced to suspend development plans, or into alternative local sourcing.

Nj Ayuk, the chamber’s executive chairman, told The EastAfrican that by refusing to bankroll Africa’s oil and gas projects, with a direct bearing on the continent’s transitioning from energy poverty, lenders from the global north are engaging in financial apartheid that has nearly crippled the industry.

Mr Ayuk did not discuss their legal strategy, but suggested the lobby was mooting a legal challenge. He said African energy lobbies, governments and project sponsors are working together on a joint lawsuit, whose details “we will update soon.”

A spokesperson for the TotalEnergies-led East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) – which several lenders have declined to support – said the AEC had not yet approached the developers to discuss a potential joint lawsuit.

Citing environmental risk and oil-related climate backlash, European and American banks have heeded activist campaigns and declined to finance fossil fuel projects in Africa, the top of which is the Eacop, whose total cost is $5 billion.

Read: Insurers distance themselves from Eacop project

This year, Eacop shareholders – French major TotalEnergies, Uganda and Tanzania governments, as well as China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) – were compelled to inject more equity funds into the project due to delayed financial close for debt financing from Chinese lenders.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is at the centre of the region’s energy transition, with Tanzania set to supply clean electricity and gas to neighbours Kenya and Uganda, but its LNG project is expected to cost $42 billion, according to Ministry of Energy Permanent Secretary Felchesmi Jossen Mramba.

However, the LNG projects may not deliver the energy transition for the region due to the global north’s shifting of goalposts, Mr Ayuk said in a recent interview.

“Natural gas is treated as a fossil fuel in Africa, but it’s seen as green energy in Europe. It’s clear discrimination, it’s outrageous and it should not be happening,” he said.