• Perenco uses gas from Badila to supply electricity to Moundou

• Chad remains among the top 15 countries with the highest gas flaring

• Lack of gas networks and processing plants limits broader utilization

Perenco, the Franco-British company operating the Badila and Mangara oil fields in the Doba Basin, is now using part of the associated gas from these sites to generate electricity for the city of Moundou. Located in southern Chad, Moundou is considered the country’s second-largest city after N’Djamena.

The company made the development public on Monday, December 1. It comes as Chad is ranked among the 15 countries in the world that flare the most associated gas. According to the Global Gas Flaring Tracker, Chad burned about 0.9 billion m³ of gas in 2023, up from 0.5 billion m³ in 2022.

Associated gas utilization remains limited in Chad, mainly because the country lacks a national collection network and processing infrastructure capable of handling the volumes produced. In this context, supplying Moundou with gas from Badila remains an exception that highlights the largely untapped potential of this energy resource.

The experience at Badila revives the debate over how to use associated gas in the Doba Basin, a recurring issue in World Bank assessments of Chad’s energy sector.

Cost benchmarks published by the World Bank and the International Energy Agency indicate that a gas pipeline can cost between $1 million and $3 million per kilometer. A processing unit generally ranges from $150 million to $250 million, while building a gas-fired power plant requires several tens of millions of dollars more. These figures illustrate the scale of investment needed to develop a gas network, at a time when none of these facilities exist in Chad.

Abdel-Latif Boureima