China, Italy, Ukraine pivot south, yet will Africans win?

After a terrorist insurgency scrambled Mozambique’s schedule for delivering its natural gas riches to global markets, the far-off war in Iran is making the southern African country’s energy popular again. Other African producers are gaining attention, too.

With Persian Gulf exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates bottled up by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz due to Iranian drone, missile and boat-swarm attacks, gas supplies in Africa look comparatively risk-free.

The energy industry observer OilPrice said African producers “could ultimately emerge as the long-term winners” from the Middle East war that began in late February 2026 when Israel and the United States attacked Iran. OilPrice said: “The ongoing disruption has handed African energy producers a distinctive structural advantage, thanks to being largely insulated from the conflict’s geography,”

What’s at Stake: Moves are happening fast amid what the International Energy Agency – a club of major energy-producing and consuming nations – calls the biggest disruption to fuel supplies in history. The European Union’s commissioner for energy and housing cautioned member governments at the end of March 2026 to prepare for “a potentially prolonged disruption of international energy trade.” Already, Italy and Spain are seeking more gas from Algeria.

Lucky timing is helping. Just days before the Iran war started, Algeria and Niger set aside political differences and resumed development of a trans-Saharan pipeline that will take gas from Nigeria to Europe in a few years. In mid-March, the Italian energy company ENI announced gas discoveries from drill sites about 10 miles and 50 miles off the coast of Libya near the country’s largest offshore gas field, Bahr Essalam. The proximity of the find, estimated to be more than 1 trillion cubic feet of gas, “will enable rapid development” by connecting to existing offshore facilities, the company said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company has opened bidding for offshore gas exploration licenses, including the drilling of 17 exploratory wells and initiating seismic surveys in the eastern Mediterranean.

China pivots to North Africa

China, which buys LNG from Qatar and the U.A.E., is turning to North Africa for future energy, and not just hydrocarbons. The Hormuz clog affects only about 6 percent of China’s total gas supply; China can tap pipeline gas from Russia and Central Asia and domestic sources, according to S&P Global. Africa will plus up supply. In July 2025, Algeria’s Sonatrach and China’s Sinopec signed a memorandum of understanding for gas exploration. The African Energy Chamber, an industry group, praised the deal as a “strong example of cross-border collaboration that balances international expertise with African resource leadership.”

Also significant is Chinese investment in renewable energy projects in Morocco, which has become China’s “green-energy bridgehead” in Africa, involving green aluminum, green hydrogen, solar and wind projects, according to Chuchu Zhang, a Middle East political economy expert at China’s Fudan University.

“By exposing the fragility of Gulf dependence, the conflict has propelled Beijing toward a more resilient, diversified, and greener energy posture” in which North Africa “is becoming a new fulcrum for China’s energy resilience,” Zhang wrote last week in a commentary for the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

Perhaps the most unlikely emerging partnership springs from another conflict. Ukraine is seeking gas from Mozambique in exchange for helping the country secure its energy-producing region. The war with Russia has disrupted Ukraine’s domestic gas production.

“Ukraine is interested in additional energy supplies,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, according to a statement from his office after he spoke with Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo on March 23.  “Mozambique is interested in Ukraine’s experience and technologies to strengthen its internal security and protect people from terror.”

Mozambique’s Financial Mess

Yet the dramatic shift in the global energy market may not generate a windfall for Africans where underlying government policies have gone awry. Mozambique’s failure to confront its deteriorating finances is putting at risk more than USD 50 billion in international investment, mainly for LNG energy megaprojects, the World Bank has warned as costly domestic debt skyrockets in the country.

Mozambique’s public debt is in “distress” and “unsustainable,” an IMF-World Bank assessment has concluded. The culprit is rising wages for the country’s 357,000 civil servants, according to the bank. A worst-case fiscal crunch “would also require that a significant share of projected LNG revenues through 2042 be diverted to cover accumulated fiscal imbalances instead of financing strategic development priorities,” World Bank analysts said in the assessment.

The implications of this “disorderly adjustment” include undermining living standards in a country where almost two-thirds of people live in poverty. A decade ago, less than half of Mozambicans were counted as poor. Poverty is deep and entrenched in rural areas, while the capital Maputo and its province are prosperous by comparison. And the financial problem could weaken the government’s capacity to deliver essential public services.

LNG megaproject restarts

The World Bank’s dire assessment contrasts with French energy giant TotalEnergies’ announced decision in January to resume full operations to tap the massive natural gas fields just off the far northern coast near Tanzania. The project was halted for five years due to a relentless insurgency by fighters affiliated with Islamic State, who have engaged in numerous attacks and kidnappings for ransom.

The security crisis prompted Rwanda to send as many as 6,300 soldiers to assist Mozambique in securing Cabo Delgado Province, where natural gas megaprojects are unfolding.

In mid-March 2026, Rwanda’s foreign minister said on X that the country would pull out of Mozambique if “our work and achievements are not appreciated” and “sustainable funding” isn’t found for the operation. Olivier Nduhungirehe complained that Rwandan soldiers had made “the ultimate sacrifice” to stabilize the region, yet are “being constantly questioned, vilified, criticised, blamed or sanctioned by the very countries that greatly benefit from our intervention in Mozambique.”

U.S. sanctions on Rwanda

The threat came a few days after the United States imposed financial penalties on Rwandan military officials in connection with alleged violations of a peace accord championed by Donald Trump for the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where minerals coveted for U.S.-backed energy and tech supply chains are in play. Rwanda said the sanctions unjustly target its military and misrepresent the conflict situation.

Another factor: The European Union isn’t planning to extend funding for the Rwandan mission beyond May 2026, Bloomberg reported in March, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. “By threatening to withdraw from Cabo Delgado, Rwanda is pressuring the U.S. not to tighten sanctions and the EU not to withdraw funding,” the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies said.

Just weeks before this geopolitical tension erupted, the lead investor in Mozambique’s energy ambitions sounded optimistic, after years of security dangers. The resumption of the gas project “reaffirms the confidence of international partners in Mozambique’s energy, institutional and human potential,” CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a January 29 statement after meeting with Mozambique’s Chapo. Another energy heavyweight, ExxonMobil, is developing the Rovuma LNG project in Mozambique.

Total is the largest partner and operator of the USD 20 billion Mozambique LNG joint venture that includes Japan’s Mitsui oil and gas company. Japan will be a major customer for the gas, whose output is set to start in 2029. Pouyanné said the project will generate 3,000 local construction jobs, more than USD 4 billion in contracts to companies in Mozambique and support 7,000 farmers and fishermen through a related foundation.

Action options: Energy producers in Africa will get an unexpected economic lift and governments should gain more fiscal revenue amid elevated world oil and gas prices. That could feed into improved public services and demand for health, education, water and other investments.  

(Feature photo: Mozambique’s Chapo and Rwanda’s Kagame meeting last year, via X.)