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A consortium led by AbdulWasiu Sowami's Ardova Plc has agreed to buy all of Powergas, one of Africa's largest producers of compressed natural gas, from the Danish fund manager A.P. Moller Capital.
The deal was announced on Friday, Sept. 25. It covers Powergas Global Investments Nigeria and Powergas Ebedei, which A.P. Moller Capital held through its Africa Infrastructure Fund and Impala Energy Holdings, and Ardova is buying them alongside Diadem Energy. Neither side disclosed a price, and completion is expected around the end of 2026 once regulators approve.
What Powergas does is take gas where pipelines do not go. It compresses natural gas, loads it onto trucks and delivers it to factories and power customers beyond the reach of the fixed grid, a model the industry calls a virtual pipeline.
The Clean Energy Group founded the business in 2013. Its Ebedei project captures gas that oil producers would otherwise burn off at the wellhead and sells it to industrial buyers, many of whom use it instead of diesel generators.
A.P. Moller Capital came in through Impala in April 2019, the first investment its Africa Infrastructure Fund ever made. Operations began in 2020, the Ebedei compression plant was commissioned in 2021, and the business now supplies customers across south-east, south-south and south-west Nigeria, employing 175 people directly.
For Ardova the purchase adds gas to a company built on liquid fuels. It already runs retail filling stations, liquefied petroleum gas, shipping, aviation fuel, lubricants and logistics across the country, and it plans to put compressed natural gas pumps into that network, targeting 100 refuelling sites within two years.
Sowami said Nigeria's next era of energy development will be built on gas.
He bought the company from Femi Otedola. Sowami's Prudent Energy and Services acquired Otedola's controlling stake in Forte Oil in 2019, ending the billionaire's two decades in fuel retailing, and the company was renamed Ardova the following year. He runs it as executive chairman.
Nigeria has been pushing drivers and industry towards gas since it removed the petrol subsidy in 2023. President Bola Tinubu's Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles and the government's Decade of Gas programme are both designed to convert vehicles and factories away from imported fuel, in a country holding the largest proven gas reserves in Africa.
Abiola Babatunde-Ojo, Ardova's managing director, said the combination gives the company the infrastructure and reach to expand compression capacity and connect more industries and fleets to domestic gas.
Pulak Sen, Powergas's vice-chairman, said Ardova's national reach and his company's compression network fit together, and that the two could now expand into new markets and geographies.
Sam Senbanjo, a partner at A.P. Moller Capital, said the Ebedei business had gone from concept to a fully operational compressed natural gas company since 2019. George Eluwa, who chairs Diadem Group, said his company had worked with Powergas as its logistics partner and had seen what taking gas beyond the pipeline network could do.
Ardova says it intends to take the platform into the wider West African market over time.
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