Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says his administration has been keeping a tight lid on Ethiopia’s natural gas production prospects owing to concerns over “saboteurs”.
The PM made the comments while taking questions from lawmakers in an ongoing parliamentary session. He told MPs the country is set to begin producing natural gas in the Somali Regional State in the coming months.
“When you come back from your Kiremt (rainy season) parliamentary recess [July-October], you will see Ethiopia will have entered natural gas production,” said Abiy.
The recently published Ethiopian Energy Outlook 2025 report indicates the federal government has scrapped plans to export natural gas from the Ogaden Basin through a pipeline to Djibouti, citing persistent financing hurdles and implementation delays. Officials say they plan instead to use the deposits to meet domestic demand for electricity and fertilizer.
Ethiopia’s foray into natural gas production began in June 2018, when Poly GCL (a Chinese firm) conducted crude oil production tests in the Somali region’s Calub and Hilala oil fields. Calub has 11 wells—all of which are productive.
In 2022, Netherland, Sewell & Associates, an American firm specializing in petroleum resource analysis, certified the presence of seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Ogaden.
Analysts who spoke to The Reporter have expressed doubts about the commercial viability of natural gas production, pointing to what they describe as insufficient deposits.
Lawmakers have posed a wide range of questions for the PM, addressing everything from ongoing macro-economic reforms, which many argue poses serious economic and social disruptions, and internal and regional political and security situations as well as Ethiopia’s quest for a sea outlet.
