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Gazprom is ready to help African countries to produce natural gas, representatives of the Russian gas giant said at a meeting with officials from African countries in Johannesburg this week.
“I believe that Gazprom’s experience implementing liquefied natural gas and gas pipeline construction projects could be of interest to South African partners,” Russian Ambassador to South Africa, Ilya Rogachev, was quoted as saying by Interfax at the roundtable to discuss the benefits of natural gas for Africa.
Representatives from nine African countries – Algeria, Angola, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and South Africa – attended the meeting.
While the West has shunned Russian energy resources and closed most airspaces to Russian aircraft and commercial flights since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, African countries have continued to keep close ties with Russia.
“Gazprom is open to discussing constructive and mutually beneficial proposals that would facilitate economic development and improve the lives of people in African countries,” Dmitry Khandoga, head of Gazprom’s foreign economic activities department, said.
Raising natural gas production in Africa will help meet the growing energy demand, the attendees of the roundtable heard.
Yet, most of the gas produced in Africa is exported, Gazprom’s representatives said.
“For example, one in three residents of Nigeria, Africa’s largest LNG exporter, does not have access to energy,” according to the Russian company.
Ironically for Russia, most of the natural gas produced in Africa ends up in Europe, which is buying more pipeline and LNG supply from Africa to replace pipeline supply from Russian Gazprom.
Oil and gas majors are now looking to sign additional deals in the Mediterranean and Africa to supply gas to Europe, which wants to ditch Russian gas by 2027.
Eni’s chief executive Claudio Descalzi told the Financial Times early this year that Europe should look to Africa for a “south-north” energy axis for gas deliveries.
