Eastern Africa Shared Gas Infrastructure Initiative – EASTGas
The project investigates potential demand for natural gas in the Eastern African region based on the development of resources in Mozambique and Tanzania, and potentially, Kenya. The countries analyzed include Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and South Africa. The narrative regarding such domestic markets has been until now that projected use was too small or to remote to justify the development of the associated pipeline infrastructure, disregarding the fact that gas supply availability can spur demand beyond what is initially anticipated. The project looks at the best ways to effectively develop gas use in these countries based on case studies, first by using large anchor customers such as power plants and large industrials, but also investigating potential for more localized use of natural gas – as currently investigated by South Africa. It is also important to understand how the regulatory frameworks in the different regions could be improved to promote the development of regional natural gas demand. Also an investigation about the potential complementarities of natural gas and renewable forms of energy in the Eastern Africa region becomes crucial to evaluate the potential emergence of a natural gas-renewable energy tandem as a paradigm for the future regional sustainability.
Main results:Â
- Explore how the policies of the different countries foresee the future role for natural gas in their respective energy mix;
- Explore the potential for natural gas demand based on a natural expansion of the energy mix combined with some switching from mostly oil in the different sectors;
- Analyze the upside of demand development having understood that the availability of natural gas can create additional demand around anchor customers;
- Analyse how Eastern African countries can finance the infrastructure needed to increase use of natural gas in a reasonable amount of time;
- Explore if natural gas can be developed in tandem with renewable forms of energy, in order to create a tandem that could become the paradigm of future regional sustainability.
Main outputs:Â
- A series of working papers and scientific articles;
- A high-level closed-door brainstorming workshop.