New African initiative launched to advocate for gas across value chain

London — The African Energy Chamber has launched a new initiative together with investment research company Hawilti to promote gas as a transition fuel in Africa.

The African Coalition for Trade and Investment in Natural Gas (ACTING) -- a non-profit initiative -- aims to encourage capital into the African gas value-chain and engage stakeholders and societies on the benefits of gas consumption.

The work of the coalition will particularly focus on the collection of key market data and the distribution of information on opportunities, companies and projects expected to shape the future of African gas, they said.

Parts of Africa are already well developed in terms of gas production and consumption, especially in North and West Africa, but elsewhere the take-up is small.

ACTING aims to gather leading experts, executives and policy makers from upstream exploration and production, midstream infrastructure, downstream monetization and gas-to-power.

"The coalition focuses on all the benefits that a broader adoption of gas can bring to Africans, especially when it comes to securing access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all," the Chamber and Hawilti said.

Hawilti said it would dedicate a "substantial" part of its investment research activities to gas in West, Central, East and Southern Africa.

"We are seeing tremendous interest from regulators, investors and consumers to adopt gas on a much broader scale," Nj Ayuk, Executive Chairman at the African Energy Chamber, said.

"ACTING will act as the vehicle accompanying all industry stakeholders on this journey," Ayuk said.

ACTING will publish an annual "State of Play" report providing key market data on African gas.

It also plans to support a broad range of gas industries, including LNG, LPG, compressed natural gas (CNG), gas-to-power and hydrogen.