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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF) has deployed N671 billion in public funds to attract about N1.6 trillion in private investment for gas infrastructure projects across Nigeria.
The Executive Director of MDGIF, Oluwole Adama, disclosed this on Thursday while delivering a keynote address titled, “Derisking Domestic Gas Infrastructure,” at the 2026 Annual Conference of the Association of Energy Correspondents Abuja FCT (AECAF).
Adama, who was represented by the fund’s Director of Strategy, Research and Deal Origination, Engr. Elvis Duruji, said the intervention reflected MDGIF’s mandate to deploy public funds to de-risk investments and mobilise private capital into the domestic gas sector
He said the fund had supported 31 projects and 205 infrastructure assets nationwide, which are expected to deliver about 475 million standard cubic feet (scf) of gas daily to the domestic market when fully operational.
According to him, MDGIF’s public investment has helped mobilise private capital worth about 2.4 times its own contribution, demonstrating the potential of its risk-sharing model.
Adama described MDGIF as a catalytic institution rather than a passive financier, saying its role was to make commercially difficult but strategically important gas projects viable for private investors and lenders.
He said if the projects and infrastructure assets in the fund’s portfolio were completed, they could increase Nigeria’s domestic gas supply by about 25 per cent, based on current production of approximately 1.9 billion scf per day.
Adama identified high financing costs, inadequate infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, as well as technical and commercial risks as major barriers to investment in the midstream gas sector.
On gas-flare commercialisation, he said MDGIF had partnered with four flare-out awardees whose projects were expected to monetise 444 million scf of gas daily that would otherwise be flared.
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He added that the projects were also expected to reduce emissions by about 2,845 metric tonnes per day.
According to him, the fund had also partnered with 30 unincorporated joint ventures and one equipment leasing company covering 20 CNG mother stations, more than 80 CNG daughter stations and an additional 75 daughter stations financed through the leasing arrangement.
Adama listed the 5 million scf mini-LNG plant being developed by Topline Limited in Delta State as one of the fund’s flagship interventions.
He described the project as Nigeria’s first indigenous mini-LNG project, noting that it had struggled for three years to secure financing before MDGIF’s equity investment helped unlock an InfraCredit guarantee.
“The fund is a public fund, and we see platforms like this as an opportunity to come and account and state: ‘This is what we are doing.
“We’ve been able to use the fund we have to reduce investment barriers, attracting more private investors to partner with MDGIF, and this is the success story.
“That particular project had gone around looking for funds for three years but couldn’t secure any. After partnering with MDGIF, the facility is now expected to be commissioned within the next two to three months,” he said.
He said other projects supported by the fund included CNG infrastructure across 20 universities, as well as Ibile Oil and Gas in Lagos and Rolling Energy in Abuja.
Duruji said the long-term objective of MDGIF was to absorb early-stage risks associated with gas projects and make them more attractive to lenders and private investors.
“The missing link is vulnerability. MDGIF’s catalytic role is to price and absorb part of the early risk, turning uncertainty into bankability, bankability into private investment, and investment into operating gas infrastructure,” he said.
