Nigeria, others to Benefit from $13bn Trans Sahara Gas Project  

The federal government has disclosed that the $13 billion Trans Sahara Gas Pipelines (TSGP) project will give Nigeria, Niger, and Algeria a huge opportunity to tap into European markets and boost economic growth on the continent.

The project, which would run from Nigeria through Niger Republic to the Mediterranean Coast of Algeria would also target gas supplies to Chad and Mali.

Minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Timipré Sylva, made this known at a meeting of the parties in Abuja, says Nigeria and its African partners, Niger and Algeria had intensified efforts to actualise the project.

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According to the minister, it will bring their huge gas resources closer to the European market, especially with the high cost of gas occasioned by the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“I believe that it is a very good time for us to take advantage of very high gas prices globally,” he noted.

Sylva said that besides taking the gas to European markets, the project would boost economic growth on the African continent and firstly, create a corridor for development across Africa.

“Chad is also not far away from the corridor of this project. So this project has a lot of potential for growing the economies of African countries, West African countries and North Africa,” he said.

Minister of Petroleum, Niger Republic, Mahamadou Mahamane noted that the countries were ready to pull their resources together to ensure that the project was achieved.

Mahamane underscored the need to get the project going, saying it would promote regional cooperation as well as earn revenue for the countries.

In an address, the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, Mohamed Arkab, says the reactivation of the project would boost economic development of the countries and assist them to achieve carbon neutrality in line with global energy transition.

Arkab recalled that a meeting had been held in Niamey on Feb. 16, within the framework of the reactivation of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline Project.

Highlighting the progress made by the countries, he said declaration had been signed by the three parties and the roadmap agreed on.

He said it was indeed a tangible sign of willingness of all of them to move further on the TSGP project, with the aim of launching the updating of its feasibility study.

“While being fully part of the project aimed at decarbonising the oil and gas industry in short term, and at achieving carbon neutrality in the longer term, we remain convinced that a global and efficient energy transition cannot take place without the contribution of hydrocarbons”.