Senegal wants to use oil and gas revenues to reduce power costs, expand electricity access and support domestic industry, while Zimbabwe is seeking investment in generation and grid upgrades. 

The two countries illustrate an effort among African countries to retain more of the value generated by domestic energy resources. But greater control does not eliminate dependence on outside capital: pipelines, power plants and transmission systems require investment beyond what most governments can finance alone.

That tension was a central theme of “Africa Takes Power: Control, Sovereignty and Growth,” a policy dialogue panel at Gastech 2026, the international conference and exhibition covering natural gas, LNG, power and emerging energy technologies, held in Bangkok on September 14-17.

Thomas Haslett, a senior official at the US International Development Finance Corporation, told the panel that DFC had more than $11bn of exposure in Africa across energy and other sectors — consistent with the agency's own recent figures, which put its sub-Saharan Africa portfolio at around $13bn.

But he warned that investors would not fund projects simply because governments had ambitious energy strategies. “We’re effectively a bank,” Haslett said. “We need to see projects that are going to earn returns.”

The practical tests, he said, include whether tariffs cover costs, utilities pay producers on time, and tax arrangements remain predictable over the lives of projects. “Countries where these investments are being made really are in charge of putting in place the environment that’s going to make them feasible,” he said.

More than 560mn people in sub-Saharan Africa lacked access to electricity in 2024, while about 970mn lacked clean cooking facilities, according to the latest World Bank-led assessment. Senegal shows how difficult it can be to turn new hydrocarbon production into cheaper power, wider access and stronger domestic industry.

Senegal's gas-to-power bet

The West African country produced its first oil from the Sangomar field in June 2024, while the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim gas project, shared with Mauritania, began flowing gas at the end of December 2024. The first phase of GTA is expected to produce around 2.3mn tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year.

Cheikh Niane, secretary-general of Senegal’s energy ministry, told the Gastech panel that Dakar did not want its new gas industry to be solely an export business. “Gas is one of the resources that we have to use to reduce our cost of production,” he said. Export revenues, meanwhile, could help finance wider electrification: “The revenue of the gas will enable us to finance access to electricity.”

Senegal’s electricity system remains heavily dependent on imported petroleum products. Oil products accounted for 72.47% of national electricity generation in 2024 and renewables for 14.46%, according to the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, citing the government’s 2025 energy-information report. Dakar’s gas-to-power strategy aims progressively to replace heavy fuel oil and coal with domestic gas, reducing generation costs and exposure to international fuel prices.

The government puts 2024 electricity access at 86.2% nationally and 69.8% in rural areas. It says 6,471 localities remain without identified financing and estimates residual investment needs of CFA395.8bn under its universal-access completion strategy.

Fiscal strain and financing gaps

Those ambitions come amid severe fiscal constraints. Audits uncovered more than $11bn in previously undisclosed liabilities, while the IMF estimates total public-sector debt at about 132% of GDP at the end of 2024. Dakar reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF on September 1 on policies that could underpin a three-year, $2.2bn Extended Credit Facility programme, subject to further approval.

The Natural Resource Governance Institute has also questioned whether Senegal’s wider energy programme is sufficiently financed and balanced. It said in January that the country’s energy-transition plan identified financing needs of €9.5bn but classified only about €2bn of projects as quick wins, while investment in the electricity grid remained insufficient. It also warned that plans for more than 3GW of gas generation by 2050 could constrain solar and wind development unless Dakar better aligns its gas and renewable strategies.

Export revenues remain important, particularly for countries short of foreign currency, but governments increasingly want hydrocarbons to supply domestic power stations, mines and manufacturing rather than simply being shipped to overseas markets.

Zimbabwe's power deficit 

Zimbabwe approaches the issue from a different starting point: not as a new oil and gas exporter, but as a power-deficit economy seeking more domestic generation, stronger grids and potentially new hydrocarbon supply.

Yeukai Simbanegavi, Zimbabwe’s deputy minister for energy and power development, said the government was seeking investment in power infrastructure as well as domestic hydrocarbon exploration. “Over the years, we have been relying on imports from other nations, but recently we have discovered oil in the northern part of Zimbabwe,” she said at Gastech.

The project she was referring to has so far yielded a gas-condensate discovery rather than a confirmed commercial oil discovery. Invictus Energy (ASX: IVZ; VFEX: INV) discovered gas at Mukuyu in the Cabora Bassa Basin in 2023 and is pursuing appraisal and commercialisation; oil prospects elsewhere in the acreage remain exploration targets.

IntelliNews reported in September 2025 that Qatar-linked Al Mansour Holdings had agreed to provide up to $500mn in conditional future financing, but Invictus terminated the agreement in January 2026 after the parties failed to agree revised terms and subsequently began seeking alternative strategic and funding partners.

Simbanegavi said Zimbabwe also needed investment in the infrastructure required to carry new power to customers. “We need to upgrade our national grid so that investors can have the correct infrastructure in place to be able to market their investments.”

Zimbabwe is trying to expand private generation and improve transmission links, including connections to the Southern African Power Pool. Those plans point less to national self-sufficiency than to greater domestic generation combined with access to a wider regional electricity market.

Cross-border electricity trade could help improve project economics. Haslett cited the Southern and West African power pools, through which generators can serve demand beyond a single national market and reduce dependence on one utility.

Reliable power is also becoming more important as Zimbabwe pushes miners towards greater domestic processing. IntelliNews reported in September that investment in lithium processing was increasing, but that power, infrastructure and finance remained important constraints on making local processing competitive.

Weighing the pros and cons

The trade-offs remain difficult. Cost-reflective tariffs can attract investment but may be politically contentious where household incomes are low. Gas exports provide hard currency, while directing more supply to domestic markets could support industrial development. Governments want greater control over strategic resources but still depend on foreign capital, expertise and technology to develop them.

For Senegal and Zimbabwe, the objective is not to stop exporting resources or dispense with international investment, but to capture more of the resulting value through cheaper electricity, stronger grids, domestic industry and wider access to power. Africa has no shortage of energy resources; the harder task is ensuring that the next investment cycle produces considerably more economic value at home.