Ramping up West Africa gas consumption through strategic investment

Ernst and Young Global Limited report indicates that gas consumption has been increasing at a yearly rate of 6 per cent since 2000, with countries like Congo, Mozambique, Rwanda and Sudan emerging as viable LNG producers.

Report indicates that West Africa could become a significant global market for imported LNG by 2025, as more countries eye gas-to-power projects.

With hundreds of millions of people living without electricity in the region, a lot of investments are increasingly turning to gas to take advantage of lower global LNG prices amid a supply glut.

According to report, the oil’s dominance in West Africa is gradually giving way to gas, while the gas sector has progressed from virtually non-existent to the potential gas prospects in 10 years.

While the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in West Africa has been championed by Nigeria, the prospects for gas in the rest of Africa have steadily increased in recent years, thus, opening the opportunities for export, as well as supporting the demand for reliable power on the continent.

Victor Mallet, director of sales for Sub-Saharan Africa in APR Energy was quoted to have said that one example of LNG’s potential in Africa is in Ghana, where the country’s massive Sankofa development is expected to start producing LNG in 2018, and provide around 2,000MW of generation capacity to Ghana’s power grid.

Mallet further added that the installation of mobile gas turbines running on LNG may be one of the cost-effective ways for these countries to expand their generating capacity. The turbines, which use the same proven technology, found in airplane jet engines, provides additional advantages, including significantly lower emissions than the typical diesel reciprocating engines found in the temporary power market.

One of the greatest benefits of fast-track power using mobile gas turbines is speed. Fast-track power provides rapid access to reliable electricity, typically within 30-90 days, and it can bridge the gap during the years required to plan, finance and construct permanent generating capacity, he said.

Tom Earl, vice president of gas and power development at the French oil major Total, in a related development opines that West Africa was seen importing five million tons a year, the region really is going to take a central role, the projects may be typically of smaller scale, but nevertheless they will collectively be very important, expert said.

He said Total was focusing on gas-to-power projects around the world and wanted to develop downstream markets to increase the uptake of gas, which is seen as a cleaner alternative to harmful coal-fired plants.

“Total is willing to invest further downstream and that is important for us because it is developing future demand, future markets,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ivory Coast signed a partnership pact recently to create a consortium headed by Total to build an LNG import terminal that could begin receiving gas shipments by mid-2018.

Ivory Coast has emerged from years of political turmoil to become one of Africa’s fastest growing economies and demand for electricity is increasing by 10 percent annually, according to the energy ministry.

The project aims to conceive, build and operate a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) with initial capacity of 100 million cubic feet that would gradually be brought up to 500 million cubic feet, according to an energy ministry statement.

KELECHI EWUZIE