Can Ghana take advantage of EU’s new found desire for African gas?
A draft document said to contain the European Union’s energy strategy to wean itself off Russian natural gas and turn to African gas has been sighted by Bloomberg.
The EU has proposed cutting demand for Russian natural gas by two-thirds before the end of 2022 under a plan to diversify supplies and speed up the rollout of renewable gases.
According to Bloomberg, the EU in the draft document asserts countries in Western Africa like Nigeria, Senegal and Angola have largely untapped potential for production of liquified natural gas.
Per the draft document, the EU is looking to boost imports of liquified natural gas by 50 billion cubic meters.
Imports of natural gas from Africa, particularly western African countries presents an enormous opportunity for Ghana to rake in massive revenues from its natural gas resource.
According to the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ghana for the period between 2019 and 2021, lost over $300m in flaring 47 billion cubic feet of excess gas from the TEN and Jubilee fields.
For the said period, ACEP notes that a total of 246 billion cubic feet of gas was either flared or re-injected for use.
The energy think tank believes that increased investments in the gas sub-sector are urgently needed to increase supplies and grow the value the economy derives from the resource.
Ghana may not be able to meet the natural gas demand of the EU, but it can make preparations and strategically position itself as a choice of natural gas producer for the EU as Europe looks to the continent to be its new supplier of natural gas.
Already, Algeria exports to the EU 8% of its natural gas, Egypt is also looking at signing a memorandum with the EU to export natural gas to Europe.
Additionally, a number of gas pipeline projects linking Africa to Europe have been studied in recent years, and feasibility studies are ongoing to build the world’s longest offshore pipeline carrying natural gas from Nigeria to Europe.
