Amid rising unemployment, sky-high energy costs, painful interest rate hikes, and a shrinking economy, Germany’s exceedingly unpopular left-liberal chancellor touched down in Africa over the weekend with the hope of inking an energy deal with Nigeria, which has the continent’s largest natural gas reserves.
Still reeling a year and a half later from the effects of having cut itself off from an abundant supply of cheap Russian gas, Germany—Europe’s largest consumer of energy due to its industrial production—is in desperate need of new energy and economic partnerships to help diversify its critical energy supply, the daily newspaper Der Spiegel reports.
In an interview with the local newspaper The Punch, Scholz acknowledged Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, as a vital economic and political partner for Germany, and made it clear that Berlin would like to see bilateral ties with Abuja further strengthened.
“Nigeria has the largest gas reserves in Africa. German companies have an interest in gas supplies from Nigeria and I look forward to working with Nigerian gas companies,” the chancellor said.
During a press conference that followed his meeting with Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Scholz called the energy partnership between Berlin and Abuja an “important element of [their] cooperation,” and added that this is “about gas, but also about hydrogen as the gas of the future—clean and climate-neutral.”
“Germany has a significant need for natural gas and, in the future, hydrogen for its economy and its energy transition,” Scholz said.
“We already operate a hydrogen office [in Nigeria] and also want to make progress overall in the expansion of renewable energies,” the chancellor continued, noting Germany’s willingness to invest in critical minerals.
President Tinubu, for his part, said that he and Scholz had a “very intensive discussion about this and we are ready to promote investments in gas pipelines.” Tinubu continued,
“I know Germany has advanced a lot in protecting the environment and modernizing energy to meet the 21st-century needs of both the world and Europe in particular. Nigeria is still crawling, but we are determined to change the narrative and bring about a transformative government in the country”.
Scholz also expressed his desire to increase bilateral cooperation across other sectors, including infrastructure, agriculture, mineral resources, migration, information and communications technology, as well as transport and logistics.
The trip, Scholz’s third to Africa in two years, is the German leader’s first to Nigeria since President Bola Tinubu was sworn in earlier this year. After Nigeria, he planned to visit Ghana.
Despite its status as Africa’s largest oil exporter and has the largest reserves of natural gas on the continent, Nigeria has yet to carry out large-scale extractions of the resource and has an underdeveloped gas transport and distribution network, according to a report from Tagesspiegel Background.
At present, Berlin imports large amounts of crude oil from Nigeria, but no natural gas. Having made direct investments totaling €150 million in Nigeria in 2021, the country was Germany’s second-largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source- The European Conservative.