Energy and infrastructure giant, Sahara Group has announced it will invest over $1billion to enhance access to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in Africa and emerging economies in a bid to boost energy transition on the continent.
Executive Director, Sahara Group Temitope Shonubi said Sahara, through its subsidiary, WAGL Energy Limited is already working towards investing $1 billion to ramp up its LPG fleet and terminal infrastructure over the next five years.
In addition to the vessel fleet, Sahara is in the process of building over 120,000 metric tonnes of LPG storage in eleven countries. The countries earmarked for the storage tanks which include Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania and Zambia whose process has commenced and five others in the preliminary stage.
Shonubi noted that Africa had become reliant on imports to meet its LPG demand as a result of low crude oil refining capacity and absence of adequate wet gas being processed.
“Africa’s refining capacity of 3,343,000 barrels per day is limited to just 20 countries; utilisation rates have fallen from about 75 per cent in 2010 to 55 per cent in 2020. Only six African nations have combined LPG storage capacity greater than 50,000MT. Economic progress is key to harnessing Africa’s latent LPG demand to boost economic performance,” he said.
The low LPG consumption in Africa is attributed to the hurdle of affordability, absence of large-scale LPG storage infrastructure, minimal vessels dedicated to the region, low set-up cost of firewood and kerosene stoves, as well as negative perceptions and fear of explosions due to poor safety standards, among other factors.