Report: Africa's pipelines to European gas grid give advantage to scale up exports

OSLO, Norway — African nations that have historically been gas suppliers to Europe are well placed to scale up their exports, according to a recent Rystad Energy report.

Africa’s advantage is that it has existing pipelines connected with the wider European gas grid. Current pipeline exports from Africa to Europe run through Algeria into Spain and from Libya into Italy. Talks of long-distance pipelines connecting gas fields in Southern Nigeria to Algeria via the onshore Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) and the offshore Nigeria Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) have picked up in recent months.

While the TSGP aims to utilize existing pipelines from Algeria to tap into European markets, NMGP aims to extend the existing West Africa Gas Pipeline all the way to Europe via West African coastal nations and Morocco.

Further afield, African LNG exports have predominantly come from Nigeria and Algeria, with smaller volumes from Egypt, Angola and a fraction from Equatorial Guinea.

In addition, large-scale discoveries offshore in Mozambique, Tanzania, Senegal, Mauritania and South Africa have the potential to yield additional natural gas exports once developed.

05.12.2022