Riverside LNG, based in Nigeria, is currently negotiating a potential gas supply agreement with South Africa, marking the first-ever deal between the two nations.
The company earlier this year signed a gas-export partnership agreement with Johannes Schuetze Energy Import AG of Germany and is now looking for deals on the continent, Chief Executive Officer David Ige said in an interview in the capital, Abuja. Nigeria has Africa’s largest gas reserves.
“We’d probably very early in the year close out another segment of the market, an off-take for South Africa,” said Ige, a former executive at the state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corp. “There’s a massively evolving gas market in the region—anything around 3,000 nautical miles of Nigeria. So that covers southern Africa, western Africa, all to northwest Europe, and to the Caribbean and South America broadly.”
Ige declined to provide further details on the talks with South African counterparts, citing confidentiality clauses. The company is also exploring opportunities in Liberia and Cameroon.
South Africa faces chronic power outages with the country’s old and poorly maintained power stations, run by debt-stricken state utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., unable to keep up with demand. Plans to buy more electricity from private producers have been delayed by grid constraints and court action.
As of now, South Africa lacks the infrastructure to receive LNG. According to Ige, deliveries from the project are scheduled to commence in 2027, providing ample time for the development of import terminal infrastructure
