The African Energy Chamber has urged Gazprom, Russian energy company, and African communities to drive gas development and utilisation in Africa.
The energy chamber decried the fact that 600 million people across Africa lacked access to electricity while 900 million, especially women lacked access to clean cooking technologies.
Mr NJ Ayuk, Chairman, African Energy Chamber, made this known on Thursday at an International Roundtable on, “The Benefits of Natural Gas for the Population and Economy.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event, which was broadcast online in Johannesburg, South Africa, was organised by the Chamber with the support of Gazprom.
In an address, Ayuk emphasised the need for African communities to figure out how to have credible partners to drive a gas story for power generation, job creation, employment and industrialisation, among others in Africa.
He said globally, Africa possessed 13 per cent natural gas but remained the most under-explored and under-developed gas basin in the world.
“It is no longer acceptable that young Africans, their only hope has to be to cross the Mediterranean Sea or Sahara to look for prosperity in wealthy nations. We have it and we have to harness it.
“We believe that climate change and energy poverty are two sides of the same coin. So, we need to deal with both,” Ayuk said.
He implored Gazprom and all African communities to drive the gas story because it would not just be a transition fuel for Africa but future fuel.
“We have Mozambique, it could go from zero to the third largest gas producer in the world; we have got Nigeria with 200 plus Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of gas, we need to harness it and stop flaring it.
“We have Congo-Brazzaville with amazing TCF of gas, Senegal, Libya and Namibia with great new discoveries among others,” he said.
He, however, called on Africans to embrace the skills, technologies and willpower that Gazprom utilised to power the entire Russia with natural gas and kept developing.
Ayuk expressed dissatisfaction that Africa’s most industrialised nation, South Africa, was experiencing 10 hours without electricity daily when abundant natural gas existed around South Africa.
“We need to unleash the potential and open up the basin,” he added.
He thanked Gazprom, for its collaboration to tackle Africa’s most critical issues and drive the message across Africa for solution and improvement.
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to South Africa, Ilya Rogachev, who urged Gazprom to assist South Africa to mitigate its energy challenge, underscored the need to foster more advanced complex economic collaboration than increasing the volume of bilateral trade.
Mr Dmitry Khandoga, Head of Delegation of PJSC Gazprom, also dwelt on the activities of Gazprom group, including exploration, extraction, transportation, storage, domestic consumption and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects.
Khandoga said with the growing number of Africa’s population, food security and energy security needed to be addressed.
Mr Dahiru Moyi, Advisor to the Nigerian Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, sought the assistance of Gazprom in developing its mobile gas facility in Africa.
“Gazprom mobile gas can be deployed in Africa, we should not wait for pipelines, Nigeria is ready for business and Gazprom is welcome to the negotiation table,” he said.
Moyi explained that there was no policy when Gazprom came to Nigeria for business in the past, but he assured that the Petroleum Industry Act passed in 2021, had a clear path on oil and gas business and investment.
According to him, when gas is developed in Nigeria, it will be easier to penetrate through Mozambique because Nigeria has a massive reach.
The roundtable also dwelt on the role of natural gas in the 21st century and development of gas infrastructure for poverty eradication, sustainable development, for safe environment and for gas-fired power generation and motor fuel.
It also discussed importing and exporting energy, energy mix in different African countries, long-term planning in the gas industry and gas technologies.
The roundtable brought together leading energy industry representatives from government regulators, business, the expert community and media from South Africa, Algeria, Angola, Ghana, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco and Kenya, among others.
PJSC Gazprom, Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation, headquartered in Saint Petersburg, is ranked as the largest publicly listed natural gas company in the world and the largest company in Russia by revenue.
Source: News Agency of Nigeria