Gas Fund Unlocks ₦1.6Trn In Private Capital For Domestic Infrastructure – MDGIF
By Sunday Etuka
The Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF) says it has used ₦671 billion in public funds to attract ₦1.6 trillion in private investment for gas infrastructure projects across Nigeria.
This even as it said it supported 31 projects and 205 infrastructure assets nationwide that are expected to deliver about 475 million standard cubic feet of gas daily to the domestic market once fully operational.
MDGIF Executive Director, Oluwole Adama, disclosed this while delivering a keynote address titled “Derisking Domestic Gas Infrastructure” at the 2026 Annual Conference of the Association of Energy Correspondents Abuja FCT (AECAF), held on Thursday. He was represented by the fund’s Director of Strategy, Research and Deal Origination, Engr. Elvis Duruji.
Adama said the disclosure reflected MDGIF’s core mandate of deploying public funds to de-risk investment and draw in private capital.
“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,'” he said, describing MDGIF as a catalytic institution rather than a passive financier tasked with making commercially difficult but strategically important gas projects viable.
He said the fund has mobilised private investment worth about 2.4 times its own contribution, calling it evidence that its risk-sharing model works.
“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,” he said.
Adama said that if all 30 partnership projects and 205 ongoing infrastructure assets in the fund’s portfolio are completed, they could raise Nigeria’s domestic gas supply by roughly 25 per cent, based on the country’s current output of about 1.9 billion standard cubic feet per day.
He identified high financing costs, inadequate infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, and technical and commercial risks as the main obstacles holding back investment in the midstream gas sector.
On flare-gas commercialisation, Adama said MDGIF has partnered with four flare-out awardees whose projects are expected to monetise 444 million scf of gas daily that would otherwise be flared, while cutting about 2,845 metric tonnes of emissions per day.
He added that the fund has also partnered with 30 unincorporated joint ventures and one equipment leasing company covering 20 CNG mother stations, more than 80 CNG daughter stations, and 75 additional daughter stations financed through the leasing arrangement.
Among the fund’s flagship interventions, Adama pointed to a 5 million scf mini-LNG plant being developed by Topline Limited in Delta State, which he described as Nigeria’s first indigenous mini-LNG project.
He said the project had struggled for three years to secure financing before MDGIF’s equity investment helped unlock an InfraCredit guarantee.
“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.
Other projects supported by the fund include CNG infrastructure across 20 universities, as well as Ibile Oil and Gas in Lagos and Rolling Energy in Abuja.
Duruji said MDGIF’s long-term goal is to absorb the early-stage risks associated with gas projects, making 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.
