Cameroon is one of the few markets in Central Africa where natural gas is sold directly to industries in Cameroon, on commercial terms, under long-term contracts. It is a small market by volume, but it is a real one, with identifiable buyers, existing pipeline infrastructure and a customer base that has already converted its burners. For gas traders and producers in Nigeria and the wider Gulf of Guinea, Cameroon presents a significant market opportunity, with potential for supply and trading.
The market has also just gone through the most significant structural change in a decade. This is a practical guide to what the market is, who consumes the gas, and where the commercial opening now sits.
1. Two production hubs with very different stories
Cameroon’s gas market is organised around two hubs, roughly 150 kilometres apart, that have almost nothing to do with each other operationally.
Douala (Logbaba). The Logbaba field sits onshore in Douala’s eastern suburbs and is operated by Gaz du Cameroun (GDC), which holds 57 per cent, alongside RSM Production Corporation with 38 per cent and SNH with 5 per cent.
Since 2012, GDC has supplied industrial customers in the Bassa and Bonabéri industrial zones through a distribution network of roughly 51 kilometres. This was Cameroon’s first commercial onshore gas production, and it remains the only piped industrial gas supply in the economic capital.
Logbaba’s production capacity is now in visible decline. According to SNH’s own reporting, GDC’s deliveries to Douala industrials fell to 35.57 million cubic metres in 2024, a drop of just under 63 per cent year on year, attributed to the disconnection of several industrial customers and to maintenance on the network. GDC applied a 20 per cent tariff increase in 2023 against the objection of the Ministry of Trade, and a number of offtakers responded by leaving. GDC recently approached the Directorate General of Customs seeking import facilitation for new equipment, expressly citing declining reserves.
The obvious replacement is the adjacent Matanda block, in which GDC holds 75 per cent, with gross unrisked prospective resources revised upward to around 1,196 billion cubic feet. Matanda has been in the queue for years. The company has struggled to attract a partner willing to share drilling cost and risk, and the exploration licence has been extended more than once. It remains a promising resource that is not yet a supply solution.
Kribi (Sanaga Sud / Bipaga). Perenco Cameroon, in association with SNH, produces gas from Sanaga Sud and Ebomé. That gas has historically served three purposes: fuelling the 216 MW Kribi gas-fired power plant, feeding LNG for export through the Hilli Episeyo floating facility, and, since 2024, supplying industry onshore through the Bipaga Gas Processing Centre.
The export leg has now ended. The Hilli Episeyo was disconnected in July 2026 and has left for a twenty-year charter in Argentina. Cameroon’s maritime LNG exports have stopped. Rather than shutting in the wells, Perenco and SNH are piping the gas entirely to Bipaga, with an emphasis on extracting more LPG for the subsidised domestic cooking gas market. In short, Kribi is going from an export hub to a domestic supply hub.
The Kribi–Douala gas pipeline planned as phase one of the Port Autonome de Douala’s 628 billion FCFA, 300 MW power project would eventually close this gap with domestic gas; works were announced for March 2026 and the project’s unit cost has attracted public criticism, but it is a real competitor to any import thesis.
Additionally, new developments are emerging that could increase Cameroon’s gas potential in the coming years. The unitisation agreement for the cross-border Yoyo–Yolanda field, holding an estimated 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in place, was signed with Equatorial Guinea in February 2026, with an 84/16 split in Cameroon’s favour and development centred on the Yoyo block. And in the 2025–26 licensing round, SNH awarded five of nine blocks in April 2026, four of them in the Douala/Kribi-Campo basin to Murphy West Africa and one in Rio del Rey to Octavia Energy. Notably, Bomono and Nkombe-Nsepe attracted no award.
2. Who actually burns Cameroonian gas
The buyer list is short, concentrated and easy to verify. That is precisely what makes it commercially useful.
In Douala, on the GDC network:
- Beverages and glass. Boissons du Cameroun (the former SABC), its glass subsidiary SOCAVER, and Guinness Cameroon. All three now sit inside the Castel group, which controls close to 90 per cent of the national beer market following its acquisition of Guinness Cameroon in 2023. This is one negotiating counterparty, not three.
- Cement. Cimencam, held through LafargeHolcim Maroc Afrique with the Cameroonian State at around 43 per cent via SNI, and Dangote Cement Cameroon, which runs a 1.5 Mtpa grinding facility at Douala-Bonabéri with a dedicated jetty for clinker.
- Steel. Prometal, which operates five plants in the Bassa industrial zone and moved from induction to electric arc furnace technology.
- Food and agro-industry. Chococam, Société Agroalimentaire Equatoriale, Maya & Cie in palm oil refining, and Union Camerounaise de Brasseries, the largest Cameroonian-owned brewer.
- Power. The Logbaba and Bassa thermal plants, now under Socadel, the public company that replaced ENEO by presidential decree in May 2026 following the State’s buy-out of Actis.
In Kribi, on the Perenco/SNH Bipaga system:
- Kribi Power Development Company, the 216 MW plant, supplied from Sanaga Sud.
- Keda Cameroon Ceramics, connected in July 2024 by a 5.27 kilometre SNH pipeline from Bipaga under a twenty-year gas sales agreement signed in 2022. At full commissioning the plant takes up to 6 MMscf/d and is designed to produce around 20 million square metres of tiles a year, roughly two thirds of national demand.
3. Where the opening is for regional gas suppliers and market players
For gas traders and producers in Nigeria and the wider Gulf of Guinea, Cameroon presents a significant market opportunity.
Douala has an established, converted, contractually mature industrial gas demand base and a supply source in decline, with no near-term replacement volume. Kribi, on the other hand, has volume that has just been freed from export, but no real commercial pipeline yet. While this is a huge challenge, it is exactly where the opportunity lies.
- Upstream. Four blocks from the 2025–26 licensing round went unawarded, and GDC has yet to secure a partner willing to carry the drilling risk on Matanda. Both are live entry points for a producer with the balance sheet and the appetite.
- Midstream. CNG or small-scale LNG trucking into the Bassa and Bonabéri industrial zones is the fastest-moving option. It requires no pipeline concession and answers exactly the problem Douala offtakers have: reliability and price predictability rather than volume at any cost. For a supplier able to move volume into Douala over the next three to five years, on contracts written for reliability, the buyers are already there and already converted.
- Captive power. Last but not least, there is a substantial captive generation market. Selling gas plus generation to a single large industrial user, on the Keda model, avoids the regulated distribution question entirely.
I advise sponsors, developers and institutional investors on energy market entry, regulatory structuring and transaction execution across CEMAC and ECOWAS. If you are assessing a gas supply, trading or gas-to-industry opportunity in Central Africa, get in touch.
