PetroSA has told international and local players in the energy space that it is committed to ethical leadership and prudent business management.

“What has become pronounced is the issue of ethics in State-owned entities (SOEs) and more broadly in government and elsewhere. National oil companies are now challenged [in terms of] the need to drive delivery effectively,” acting group CEO Kholly Zono said at the Future Energy Africa oil and gas conference, in Cape Town.

“For us to execute our developmental mandate, we need to have generated value. We need to improve management capabilities. We can’t underestimate this. Key to strategic success are ethical leadership and prudent business management.”

Zono said it was vital for PetroSA to boost its credit ratings. To do this, it had to ensure it recruited the right people through a thorough vetting process.

“You can’t compromise on your requirement to do security vetting.”

He said that if the SoE shied away from doing detailed vetting, it could be susceptible to corruption.

“We have to follow this without fear or favour . . . You can’t do the same things and expect the [different] results.”

Employees also needed to ring in the changes.

“For organisations like ours that have suffered losses, we need employees to own our strategy, and to think differently.”

“We need to move away from just sponsoring projects and be clear on intent.”

He said the days of working in silos and not integrating the value chain should be over.

Zono called for mutual respect in partnerships between International oil companies and national oil companies.

“Partnerships between international oil companies and national oil companies can’t be distant partnerships. [There] needs to be a relationship where we treat each other as equals.”

He hinted that PetroSA might have erred by investing in the failed Project Ikhwezi on its own and questioned how differently things might have panned out if it had taken on an international partner.

The project, to search for additional gas reserves off the coast of Mossel Bay, notched up billions of rands in losses.

“When people talk about PetroSA, they talk about PetroSA and Project Ikhwezi. Should we have done a project of that nature on our own or should we have had a partner? What would the implications have been if we had partnered with an international oil company with the people with the skills and technology [to execute such a project]?”

Zono said partnerships were important, as both international oil companies and national oil companies were able to overcome the barriers together. He conceded that shareholders had moved away from “just pumping money” into national oil companies and that it had become critical to reducing liability and dependence.

But he stressed that international oil companies and shareholders in public companies needed to have the interests of clean energy at heart in Africa.