Diversification should...

take customers beyond petrol and diesel, and offer them a domestic, more cost-efficient, and cleaner fuel to put in their cars. On a bigger scale, domestic gas is already being valorized in the Indorama Eleme Fertilizers plant in Port Harcourt, currently under expansion, and in the soon-to-be commissioned Dangote Fertilizers plant in Lekki.

In neighboring Cameroon, Victoria Oil & Gas has been supporting the development of a strong industrial and manufacturing base on the outskirt of Douala by connecting several customers to natural gas.

Also in the Gulf of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea is building a regasification terminal to process its own natural gas across several industries such as power and cement on its mainland.

Further north in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the government has been pushing for the procurement and deployment of CNG buses that also run on domestic natural gas.

“Success stories abound all around us, yet they need to be expanded and replicated for Africa to truly embrace the benefits of economic diversification,” Karim said.

However, for all this ambition to be achieved, the development of enabling environments and sound market policies by these African oil producers is crucial to facilitate investments into gas production and gas transportation and processing infrastructure.

“Nigeria has already taken the opportunity to maximize its gas with the West Africa Gas Pipeline. As an industry, if we are able not only to ensure stable gas supplies through that pipeline, but also lay additional connections to North Africa and Europe through Niger, and to East and Southern Africa through the Central African Republic, then a country like Nigeria gives itself the opportunity to industrialize the whole continent through the production and export of its domestic gas while creating several thousands jobs,” Karim added.

In that regards, incentives to be given to such critical midstream infrastructure, along with market policies to support gas valorization, form key parts of the African Energy Chamber’s Common-sense Energy Agenda released this month.

Africa needs to get used to a post-COVID-19 world where $50/barrel is the new $100, and where diversification needs to be the key priority in order to create a new hedge and natural buffer against future downwards cycles.

Karim adds that “diversification needs to become our new reality. For Nigeria, it is time to stand up and focus on gas to become the gas platform producer that the continent needs. This pandemic should afford us all the opportunity to view our (African) countries from an internal point of view, and prepare ourselves and our economies for the next big crisis,” the Shoreline Natural Resources boss concluded.