By Dawan Africa - Reporter
Kenya, 4 December 2025 - The story of Africa’s energy future always circles back to one truth, gas isn’t going anywhere. Not yet.
And definitely not for a continent still building the systems that hold its people up.
Natural gas is becoming the quiet centre of Africa’s next energy chapter. Even in a world moving toward surplus liquefied natural gas (LNG), Africa’s demand is set to climb almost 60% by 2050, according to the African Energy Chamber’s 2026 Outlook.
It’s the only fossil fuel expected to grow its share of global primary energy demand which already tells you this must be treated as a priority, not as a footnote.
The shift is happening slowly but clearly. North Africa has carried the weight for decades, but its dominance is fading.
Sub-Saharan Africa now holds more than 70% of the continent’s remaining recoverable gas, and that is where the momentum is heading.
Nigeria kicked off its “Decade of Gas” in 2021 and still produces more than half of the region’s commercialised gas.
Behind it are the new risers, Mozambique, Tanzania, Senegal, Mauritania, Angola, with export operations having been online since 2022.
What’s interesting is how the demand curve is forming.
Africa’s annual gas consumption is projected to grow from roughly 55 billion cubic metres in 2020 to over 90 billion by 2050, driven by homes, industries, and power. Sub-Saharan Africa has the reserves to meet that surge, more than 400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.
And unlike North Africa’s older, oil-linked systems, this new wave is mostly non-associated gas.
Though pricier per MMBtu, the standard unit for measuring energy in fuels like natural gas, it’s free from oil-price swings and reinjection limits, offering investors stable, long-term value. This is natural gas that stands on its own.
The real transformation, though, sits in two pathways, exports and domestic industrialisation.
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On exports, Africa delivered 34.7 million tonnes of LNG last year, 8.5% of global supply. 60% went to Asia, 25% to Europe.
If Tanzania joins the roster as projected, Sub-Saharan output could quadruple by 2050. And because West and Southwest Africa sit at the crossroads of Atlantic and Indian Ocean markets, they can play the price-swing game shifting supply where global spikes create opportunity.
And when export projects include domestic market obligations , like in Nigeria, Senegal-Mauritania, and Angola , that external demand actually grows the internal supply. Senegal wants 3 gigawatts of gas-fired power by 2050, fueled in part by those very obligations.
Then there’s domestic monetisation. Beyond export revenue, gas can reshape countries from the inside , running transport, powering factories, lighting homes. Nigeria sits at 12.6 GW of gas-fired power, Ghana and Mozambique have their own growing footprints. Coastal countries are even using floating gas power ships to bridge demand.
Across the region, governments are looking at gas-to-power projects, fertilisers, petrochemicals, and industrial uses like metals processing.
Angola’s National Gas Plan and Nigeria’s expansion into CNG transport are early signals of where this could go. Done right, gas offers a dual win, cutting imports and building internal economies strong enough to stand on their own.
But all of this lives next to a harder truth, Africa has some of the world’s biggest discovered-but-undeveloped gas reserves.
The Rovuma basin alone holds 129 Tcf, the Niger Delta basin holds 113 Tcf. And yet the gap between potential and reality remains wide.
The 2026 Outlook points to four success factors that will decide whether Africa crosses that gap, upstream economics, market access, infrastructure, and country risk. Without alignment, discoveries stall. Investors leave. The whole chain breaks.
Upstream economics need to make sense, especially for non-associated gas. Market access needs creditworthy buyers and long-term contracts.
Infrastructure needs LNG plants and pipelines, which require the kind of regulatory predictability that investors can actually trust. And fiscal terms need to stay balanced enough to attract capital without starving governments of revenue.
The bigger picture is simple, gas is Africa’s bridge fuel. Cleaner than coal, steadier than oil, and flexible enough to power both industry and homes. If nations can align policy, build infrastructure, and secure reliable offtake, the continent won’t just see a gas boom. It will see a structural transformation, one that creates energy security, export strength, and decades of new industrial jobs.
That’s the promise sitting on the table. The question now is who will move fast enough to claim it.
