- The Gas for Africa 2025 Report calls for an urgent scale-up of natural gas to drive industrial growth.
- Through strategic investments, the Gas for Africa 2025 Report highlights the potential of natural gas to power the continent’s next stage of development.
The Gas for Africa 2025 Report calls for an urgent scale-up of natural gas to drive industrial growth. Moreover, it highlights the potential of natural gas to power the continent’s next stage of development through strategic investments.
Hawilti and the International Gas Union (IGU) released the second edition of the Gas for Africa Report. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the continent’s natural gas sector at a time of rising global energy demand. In particular, the report underscores the pressure on African countries to secure affordable, reliable, and lower-emission energy systems.
According to the report, Africa holds over 17,000 billion cubic meters (bcm) of proven natural gas reserves. Yet, it currently monetises only a small fraction of this resource. In 2024, the continent produced approximately 246 billion cubic meters (bcm) of marketed gas. This is far below North America’s 1,300 billion cubic meters (bcm) and the CIS region’s 875 bcm. Furthermore, consumption remained even lower at 178 billion cubic meters. This disparity highlights that Africa remains a marginal player in global gas consumption despite its substantial reserves.
This imbalance reflects a deeper structural challenge. Africa combines the world’s lowest per-capita energy consumption with some of the highest rates of population growth, industrialisation, and urbanisation. Consequently, energy demand is rising rapidly. The report notes that Africa’s energy deficit extends beyond household electrification and access to clean cooking. Industries, mines, transport fleets, and digital infrastructure all struggle with underpowered and unreliable systems. Over the past 20 years, per capita electricity consumption has declined, indicating stagnation in productive energy use.
At the centre of this challenge lies Africa’s over-reliance on gas-to-power, which accounts for nearly half of the continent’s total gas demand. By contrast, global norms distribute demand across power, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. As a result, reliance on financially distressed power markets limits gas monetisation and weakens the business case for large-scale infrastructure. However, Egypt, Algeria, and Nigeria show how gas can fuel fertilisers, petrochemicals, cement, steel, and other industrial value chains. Therefore, these countries provide models that emerging markets, such as Angola, Senegal, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, can replicate.
From an environmental perspective, natural gas offers a pragmatic pathway to reduce emissions while supporting development. Specifically, it displaces coal and diesel, stabilises renewable-heavy grids, reduces reliance on biomass for household cooking, and builds infrastructure compatible with future low-carbon fuels such as hydrogen, biomethane, and synthetic gases.
Amel Grabsi, Regional Director at Hawilti and Gas for Africa, emphasised that the real challenge is not resource availability but utilisation. Africa consumes barely 178 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually, with almost half going to a financially distressed power sector. She argued that redesigning energy systems around industry, transport, mining, and digital infrastructure could unlock jobs, competitiveness, and long-term economic resilience.
The Gas for Africa 2025 Report outlines eight key principles to maximise gas benefits. These include futureproofing projects by design, financial innovation, enabling a good business climate, regionalisation, cluster and ecosystem investing, gradual scaling, reformed electricity markets, and pricing emissions. Ultimately, the report concludes that Africa stands at a decisive moment. Without coordinated policy action, midstream and downstream investment, and reforms that unlock industrial demand, much of the continent’s gas could remain stranded. However, with the right frameworks, natural gas can underpin energy access, industrialisation, clean cooking, regional integration, and economic resilience.