29 October 2015, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Africa has about 70 years of natural gas production going by the volume of gas available on the continent and the current production rate, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed.
The PwC 2015 report on Africa’s oil and gas put the continent’s proven natural gas reserves as at the end of 2014 at about 500 trillion cubic feet, tcf, saying the figure showed a slight drop compared to the volume as at 2013.
Four countries – Nigeria, Algeria, Libya and Egypt – were currently holding about 90 per cent of the entire gas in Africa, the report also revealed.
According to it, natural gas has continued to be high on the African agenda for both producers and consumers.
“In Angola, LNG came online, but production was forced to stop due to feedstock not meeting the engineering requirement. Production is expected to be back on line at full capacity by early 2016”.
Nigeria, according to the report, has plans to quintuple natural gas production by 2020, but it said the focus would be on East Africa and how it would develop its gas projects.
It noted: “Despite a slack off in activity, Africa continues to grow as governments and players alike plan their next moves. It is clear through our interactions that many companies are taking a different perspective on the challenges they face.
“They are being looked at as realities that can and must be dealt with if they wish to enter African markets. Strategies are therefore being implemented to handle the new African reality”.