Page 14 - AfrOil Week 09 2021

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Gasmeth will use an offshore platform to extract methane from Lake Kivu (Image: Gasmeth)

Gasmeth set to begin producing

CNG in Rwanda by end-2022

RWANDA GASMETH, a company founded to extract working with Rwandan authorities to sign up
methane from Lake Kivu in Rwanda, has said customers on the domestic market.
it expects to begin turning out CNG by the end Tierney said he expected that “approximately
of next year. half” of Gasmeth’s future production would be
According to Stephen Tierney, Gasmeth’s used as cooking fuel. He acknowledged that
CEO, the company is making progress on this Rwandan authorities had been encouraging
front despite delays related to the coronavirus local consumers to treat CNG as cooking fuel
(COVID-19) pandemic. As a result, he told the – and therefore as a substitute for LPG, which
New Times last week, it expects to launch CNG is itself an alternative to charcoal and firewood.
production by late 2022. “The entire project will Officials in Kigali believe that Gasmeth’s
be live by then,” he stated. CNG could allow 300,000-400,000 households
Gasmeth has already completed work on to phase the use of charcoal and firewood.
an environmental and social impact assess- However, they have also highlighted other pos-
ment (ESIA), which outlines plans to uphold sibilities, such as using CNG as a substitute for
the strict standards necessary to secure financ- gasoline or diesel fuel or burning it in generators
ing for the $400mn project from international for industrial use.
lenders, Tierney added. “As you can appreciate, This is in line with the concession agree-
a privately funded project of this scale requires a ment that Gasmeth signed with the Rwandan
great deal of support from both local and inter- government in 2019. That agreement gave the
national equity providers/lenders,” he said. “We company the right to extract up to 40mn cubic
are fortunate to have received great support for feet per day of methane from Lake Kivu and to
this strategically important project and expect to build onshore gas-processing and compression
close the final capital raise by mid-year.” facilities to produce CNG. It envisioned produc-
In the meantime, he noted, the company is tion beginning in 2021. ™

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