Inside Africa: Pipelines Without Power, Why Congo’s Gas Boom Hasn’t Fixed Its Electricity Problem
Orhan Akbaba
In December 2025, the Republic of Congo marked an energy milestone. Phase 2 of the Congo LNG project, developed by Eni, began operations six months ahead of schedule, adding 2.4 million tonnes per annum of capacity and bringing the floating project’s total to three million tonnes per year. The new Nguya FLNG unit joined existing offshore infrastructure on the Marine XII block, turning Congo into a fully fledged liquefied natural gas exporter with its first cargo expected in early 2026.
Government and industry statements present gas as the answer to two linked questions: what to do with associated gas that has historically been flared, and how to diversify an economy long dependent on oil exports. But behind the celebratory headlines, another reality persists. Recent World Bank data show that only around half of Congo’s population has access to electricity, one of the lowest rates among long‑standing oil exporters. In many rural areas, households remain far from the grid entirely.
The paradox is not unique to Congo, but it is particularly stark there. The country has been exporting oil for decades and now holds enough gas reserves to support both LNG exports and domestic power generation, yet power cuts remain common in Brazzaville and Pointe‑Noire. Understanding why requires looking less at new pipelines and more at the structure of the electricity system that the gas is supposed to feed.
A resource‑rich economy with thin safety nets
The Republic of Congo’s modern economy has been shaped by hydrocarbons. Oil has dominated exports and fiscal revenue for years, rendering the country vulnerable to global price fluctuations. When prices fell sharply in 2014, growth collapsed. Between 2015 and 2023, the economy experienced repeated contractions, and the World Bank estimates that per‑capita income fell back toward levels last seen several decades earlier.
Recent growth numbers look better on paper. A 2025 economic update from the World Bank reports real GDP growth of 2.6% in 2024, the first significant per‑capita income increase since 2016, driven by both oil and non‑oil sectors. But the same report notes that poverty remains widespread, social indicators lag, and fiscal vulnerabilities are still high. Congo’s public debt has climbed well above levels the IMF considers sustainable, in part due to borrowing against future oil revenues and the costs of fuel and electricity subsidies.
That background matters because it shapes what the state can realistically spend on long‑term power infrastructure. Every dollar committed to servicing old debts or supporting domestic fuel prices is a dollar not invested in transmission lines, substations, or rural electrification.
Gas projects built for ships, not sockets
The Congo LNG development is emblematic of this tension. The project’s core purpose is to monetize offshore gas for export markets. Phase 1 and Phase 2 together are designed to process gas from the Marine XII block and load it onto LNG carriers bound for Europe and Asia. The economics, contracts, and timelines are structured around those buyers and their demand.
There are domestic benefits. Eni’s activities in Congo include gas‑fired power plants that supply electricity to the national grid, notably facilities near Pointe‑Noire that feed the coastal industrial and urban corridor. The company has also invested in distribution networks and public lighting in that region, improving service quality for many residents.
Still, export infrastructure and urban gas‑fired plants do not automatically translate into reliable power for the rest of the country. Independent analyses such as GET.transform’s 2026 overview of the sector describe an electricity system where generation capacity exists on paper but is hampered by an aging grid, limited interconnection between regions, and high technical and commercial losses. In such a system, additional gas‑fired megawatts at one end do not resolve the structural bottlenecks elsewhere.
A grid playing catch‑up
The World Bank’s Strengthening Electricity Services Project, restructured in 2025, gives a sense of how basic some of those bottlenecks are. The program focuses on rehabilitating the high‑voltage line that connects Pointe‑Noire and Brazzaville, upgrading substations along the corridor, and extending medium‑voltage distribution networks to connect more households in both cities. Simultaneously, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo have formalized a 30‑megawatt electricity‑sharing agreement, regularising cross‑border power flows that had existed informally for decades.
These are not the kinds of projects that make headlines, but they demonstrate how far the core grid still has to go. The national utility has struggled with non‑payment, outdated equipment, and tariff structures that do not fully cover costs. Without reforms to its finances and governance, the utility cannot reliably maintain the network it has, let alone extend it to rural areas.
Recognizing this, Congo signed a National Energy Compact in 2025 that commits the government to accelerating electrification and improving sector governance through 2030. The compact outlines targets for increasing access, attracting private investment, and gradually moving toward more cost‑reflective tariffs while protecting vulnerable consumers. It also acknowledges that distributed and off‑grid solutions will have to play a larger role in reaching remote communities that are unlikely to be connected to the main grid soon.
The promise and limits of “gas‑to‑power.”
Congo’s leadership, working with its national oil company SNPC, has embraced natural gas as a bridge fuel that can support both exports and domestic energy needs. A Gas Master Plan announced in 2025 sets out a strategy to expand gas‑fired power generation, reduce flaring, and supply gas to industrial users. A new Gas Code, due to come into force in the second half of 2025, is intended to give investors greater legal clarity about gas exploration, production, and utilization.
Advocates argue that gas‑to‑power can help Congo close its electricity gap more quickly than large hydropower projects, which carry long lead times and financing risks. The Atlantic Council, in a 2025 paper on gas in Africa’s energy transition, cites Congo as one of several countries where domestic gas plants could be especially useful for stabilising the grid and expanding access. That argument gains force as newer gas‑fired units — including those linked to the LNG chain — come online.
But the Gas Master Plan and new investments cannot, on their own, fix the underlying distribution and affordability issues. Households feel the sector through bills and outages, not through production statistics. If tariffs rise to support utility solvency without corresponding improvements in reliability, political pressure to maintain subsidies will intensify, reinforcing the cycle of under‑investment. If they remain artificially low, the utility will continue to struggle to finance maintenance and expansion.
What this means for ordinary Congolese
Seen from Brazzaville or Pointe‑Noire, the gas boom and power‑sector reforms are unfolding in tandem. On one side of town, delegations gather for the Congo Energy & Investment Forum and discuss billions of dollars in upstream and LNG projects. On the other hand, residents and small businesses still contend with unexpected outages and voltage drops that damage equipment and disrupt work.
For now, the evidence suggests that Congo is doing more to monetize gas for export than to guarantee universal access to power at home. The LNG project will generate foreign exchange and may reduce flaring, while Eni’s domestic plants and World Bank‑backed grid upgrades are real contributions. But access statistics, poverty indicators, and the government’s own energy compact all underline how far there is to go before gas revenues translate into stable, affordable electricity for most citizens.
The question for the next decade is whether Congo’s gas strategy will be used primarily to service debt and fund further export infrastructure, or whether a significant share of the gains will be locked in through investments that ordinary Congolese can see at the switch. The answer will not be found in LNG cargo counts alone, but in whether power cuts become less common in Brazzaville’s neighbourhoods and whether villages far from the coast finally get their first reliable light.
