The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and Sahara Group, through their joint venture business, WAGL Energy Limited, are set to develop and construct jetties across West African countries to boost the supply and penetration of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, in the sub-region.
Managing Director, WAGL Energy Limited, Emmanuel Ubani, said in a statement made available to journalists on Sunday by Sahara Energy that discussions were already at advanced stages for the first in the lot.
He said the move was part of several efforts by the company to take advantage of the opportunities in the energy transition space.
He said WAGL had embarked on developing infrastructure to take beneficial advantage in the emerging energy transition era.
While acknowledging growing LPG demand in Africa, Ubani, advised that more strategic policies and investments were required to further promote and deepen the product’s utilisation in rural communities in the continent.
According to him, for LPG to increase to a significant or dominant market position in Sub-Saharan African countries, an enabling environment for the sector must be put in place.
He listed the elements that made up the enabling environment as infrastructure -both liquefaction and regasification plants, gas distribution, pipelines and/or gas distribution trucks, cylinder distribution and/or segmented local distribution to individual houses and industries.
Ubani was quoted in the statement as saying, “All parts of the value chain must be in place and functional, that is, a distribution system to enable feasible access for the users must exist, a ready and vibrant market network and most importantly, acceptable and accommodating uses of the alternative energy source.
“Ensuring this requires both public and private investments at a level that allows for economies of scale, supporting in making the sector commercially viable.