Gas infrastructure fund attracts N1.6tn private investment

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The Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund has leveraged N671bn in public funds to attract about N1.6tn in private investment into Nigeria’s gas infrastructure, as the Federal Government and regulators intensify efforts to revive investment in the petroleum industry.

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The fund said the investment is supporting 31 projects and 205 infrastructure assets across the country, with the projects capable of delivering about 475 million standard cubic feet of gas daily to the domestic market when fully operational.

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The Executive Director of MDGIF, Oluwole Adama, disclosed this on Thursday at the 2026 Annual Conference of the Association of Energy Correspondents of Abuja in Abuja, where he delivered a keynote address titled, “De-risking Domestic Gas Infrastructure.”

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Adama, who was represented by the Director, Strategy, Research and Deal Origination at MDGIF, Elvis Duruji, said the fund was established to use public money to reduce investment risks and make gas projects attractive to private investors.

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He said, “We have been able to use about N671bn to capitalise and attract capital of N1.6tn. So this is actually the whole objective of the PIA, and that is what we’re doing.

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“We have 31 projects across every region; we have 205 infrastructures. So we have partnered with 31 projects, and we have 205 infrastructures across every region. Then 127 have already commenced projects, and 10 have been commissioned.

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“The fund is a public fund, and we see platforms like this as an opportunity to come and account and state: This is what we are doing,” he said.

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He explained that MDGIF was not designed to operate as a passive funding vehicle, but as a catalytic platform capable of turning projects that may initially appear commercially unattractive into bankable investments.

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“In MDGIF, we make projects bankable, even projects that may not look financially viable, but have national strategic importance; when we subject them to our channel, we end up making them viable,” Adama said.

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According to the fund, its interventions have mobilised private capital at about 2.4 times its own contribution, indicating the extent to which its public funding is being used to reduce risks for investors.

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“As we speak, MDGIF has used its own fund to mobilise 2.4X of the private counterparties, so we’ve been able to use the fund we have to trigger and reduce the barrier to an extent where we now have many other private investors coming to partner with MDGIF, and this is the success story,” he said.

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Duruji said that if the projects in the fund’s portfolio were completed, they could increase domestic gas supply by about 25 per cent from the current production level of about 1.9 billion scf per day.

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“As of today, if all the projects about 30 partnership projects we’ve run into and 1,205 projects ongoing, if they are executed today, they will be churning out about 475 million scf per day of gas into the domestic market,” he said.

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He identified high financing costs, infrastructure deficits, regulatory uncertainty and technical and commercial risks as some of the major constraints discouraging investment in Nigeria’s midstream gas sector.

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The MDGIF boss also disclosed that the fund had partnered with four flare-out awardees whose projects could monetise 444 million scf of gas daily that would otherwise have been flared, while eliminating about 2,845 metric tonnes of emissions per day.

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He said the fund had also partnered with 30 unincorporated joint ventures and one incorporated equipment leasing company covering 20 CNG mother stations, more than 80 CNG daughter stations and another 75 daughter stations through the leasing company.

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One of the projects highlighted was a five million scf mini-LNG plant by Topline Limited in Delta State, described as Nigeria’s first indigenous mini-LNG project.

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“That particular project had gone around looking for funds for 3 years, but couldn’t get any. But when they partnered with MDGIF, today that facility will be commissioned in the next 2 to 3 months from now,” he said.

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Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, called for sustained investment, policy stability, regulatory certainty and faster project execution to strengthen Nigeria’s position in the global energy market.

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“Our task is therefore not simply to produce hydrocarbons, but to create an investment environment that enables these resources to support industrialisation, job creation, infrastructure development and improved living standards,” he said.

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The minister added, “This requires a sustained commitment to policy stability, regulatory certainty, fiscal competitiveness, security and efficient project delivery.”

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The NUPRC Chief Executive, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, also said Nigeria needed to focus on converting its petroleum resources into economic value rather than merely celebrating the size of its reserves.

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“For me, the starting point is economic value. Nigeria has a significant petroleum resource base, but resources in the ground do not, by themselves, create prosperity,” she said.

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Eyesan said the Commission had approved Field Development Plans representing more than $57bn in investment since 2024, while 22 major offshore projects expected between 2026 and 2030 had estimated investment potential of $30bn to $50bn.

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“The priority now is execution. Approvals and investment commitments are important, but their real value is realised when projects move, and new volumes come on stream,” she said.

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She added, “We have to spend less time admiring the opportunity and more time converting it.”

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Earlier in his address, Chairman of AECAF, John Ofikhenua, said the conference was designed to provoke discussion on how Nigeria could retain and renew investor confidence in the hydrocarbon industry amid the global shift towards cleaner energy.

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The conference, themed “Sustaining Oil and Gas Investment in Nigeria Amid Energy Transition,” brought together government officials, regulators, industry operators and energy correspondents to examine how Nigeria can retain investment in its oil and gas industry as global energy markets shift towards cleaner sources.

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