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A Ghanaian energy company has raised more than half a billion dollars to fund ongoing natural gas-based power projects and pursue new opportunities in West Africa.
Genser Energy secured a €456 million ($527 million) credit package arranged by three of South Africa’s top banks First Rand Bank, Absa and Standard Bank, company founder and CEO Baafour Asiamah Adjei told Semafor. He said the company plans to raise more money through an equity sale.
Founded in 2006, Genser has built and owns eight power plants across Ghana and Burkina Faso with installed generation capacity exceeding 334 megawatts, and operates a 270-mile natural gas pipeline across Ghana, supplying mining companies with electricity.
About 600 million people living in Africa — nearly half of the continent’s population — lack access to electricity. Rising renewable energy investment is helping to close the gap in large economies, including Nigeria and South Africa, but tapping vast natural gas reserves can provide the foundation to accelerate the transition, analysts say.
Genser’s immediate spending plan includes completing the upgrade of the company’s open-cycle gas turbine plants to combined-cycle systems that improve efficiency while burning less fuel, and readying a gas processing plant under construction in Takoradi, western Ghana, for launch later this year. Some of the money will go towards beginning the construction of a 470 megawatt power project recently agreed with Côte d’Ivoire’s government and to be located in Taboth, a village 25 miles west of the capital city Abidjan, Adjei said.
Having also raised the money to buy out Oppenheimer Partners, a South African investor that held a 40% stake, Genser will begin talks with other investors later this month to raise $350 million from an equity sale, Adjei said. A longer term plan is to list on the New York Stock Exchange and another bourse in West Africa, he said.
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Natural gas is Africa’s leading electricity generation fuel, according to the International Energy Agency, accounting for nearly the combined total from coal and hydropower. Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria are among at least a half dozen African countries that have harnessed their gas reserves to improve electricity access over the last two decades, said the Natural Resource Governance Institute, a New-York based group that is nonetheless skeptical about the promise of gas-powered plants for Africa due to long-term costs.
Genser previously built plants based on crude oil and coal, but has focused on natural gas — which it does not produce but sources from upstream players — for most of its operations. Nigeria’s gas prices are about a third lower than charged by local rivals Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, which will be crucial for Genser’s long-term goals of providing low-cost electricity to its growing clientele, Adjei said. The company hopes to make a final investment decision about gas supply from Nigeria by the end of next year and begin buying in barges by 2030, he added.
With more than $2 billion in debt and equity capital raised from majority South African banks, Genser’s financing history underscores the huge investment challenges that gas-to-power projects involve. Artificial intelligence is driving a surge in global demand for electricity, further raising the investment costs of gas power plants. The price of new combined-cycle plants has tripled in the last six years, according to one estimate.
Genser is “not yet profitable,” Adjei said, because the company remains in a growth phase that requires it to steadily borrow and reinject revenues towards building additional capacity. “Our financing cost almost eats up all the profit we would have ever made, but we will become profitable immediately we stop growing,” he said. Genser’s current debt is at about $1 billion, Adjei said, which he hopes the company will pay down with the planned equity sale.
Notable
Africa’s electricity demand rose by 5.2% last year, up from 4% in 2024, according to an International Energy Agency report.