Africa: Who Dares Wins - LPG, the Next Frontier for Africa's Downstream

What the report says

An opinion piece published by AllAfrica argues that liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, is becoming Africa’s most important downstream fuel opportunity over the next two decades, especially because of its role in clean cooking. The article, written by Anibor O. Kragha of the African Refiners and Distributors Association (ARDA), says the continent still has a large clean-cooking gap and that demand is rising faster than the infrastructure needed to supply it.

The piece says sub-Saharan Africa consumed 6.4 million tonnes of LPG in 2025, while demand is expected to climb sharply by 2045. It highlights weak storage, limited terminal capacity and reliance on the spot market as major bottlenecks. The author argues that investment is needed across the full value chain, including gas processing, import terminals, bottling plants, cylinder manufacturing, inland transport and last-mile distribution.

The article also identifies countries and corridors where projects could take root, including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Tanzania and frontier markets such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia. It says regional hub models could combine traders, national oil companies, Gulf or development finance and African marketers to build supply chains.

ARDA is presented as a convening platform for governments, companies and financiers. The broader context, based on general industry knowledge, is that clean cooking remains a major public-health and energy-access issue across Africa, and LPG is often seen as a transitional fuel where electricity and piped gas are not yet widely available.