We believe the global gas market will continue to provide value-enhancing opportunities for the foreseeable future.

Prices are currently at record levels in many markets and global gas demand is forecast by the International Energy Agency to grow at over 2% per annum to 2030, driven by economic growth and the demand for gas-fired power generation.

As part of this growth, LNG demand is set to increase by over 8 per cent per annum to 2020 driven by, amongst other things: 

• declining indigenous gas supplies in major consuming countries;
• the reduced attractiveness of piped gas given the challenges to build new pipelines and the geographical distances between supply and demand;
• competitiveness of LNG in the power sector;
• the desire of consuming countries to diversify gas supplies away from Russian and Middle Eastern gas due to higher geopolitical risk.

Africa, in particular the Gulf of Guinea, is an increasingly important source of natural gas and is well positioned to meet this growing demand. Despite the significant reserves (they are comparable with the reserves of Western Europe, the US and the United Arab Emirates), much of the Gulf of Guinea’s gas is undeveloped due to the lack of adequate gas monetisation options for smaller reserves and may be flared or vented during crude oil extraction causing damage to the environment.