The Writer
Natural Gas and the Transition
Natural gas will remain important to Ghana’s energy security and industrial development during the transition. The immediate priority should be to use domestic gas resources efficiently while avoiding infrastructure and investment decisions that create unnecessary long term dependence on fossil fuels.
BRICS partnerships could support investment in gas processing, gas-to-power infrastructure, LNG related infrastructure and other systems that improve reliability and industrial competitiveness.
The policy challenge is to ensure that gas serves as a bridge to a more diversified energy system rather than becoming an obstacle to it.
Ghana as a Regional Energy Hub
Ultimately, the broader opportunity is to position Ghana as a regional energy hub.
Ghana has the potential to serve neighboring markets through petroleum products, natural gas, electricity and, increasingly, clean energy solutions. BRICS capital and technology could support the infrastructure required to achieve this ambition.
This is important because Ghana’s investment proposition becomes considerably stronger when viewed not only through the size of its domestic market, but through its ability to provide access to the wider West African market.
Policy Recommendations
- Build a dedicated BRICS Energy Strategy.
Focus BRICS engagement on Ghana’s key capital and technology needs across power, gas, renewables, storage, petroleum logistics, EVs and alternative fuels. - Build an NDB ready project pipeline.
Move from project identification to bankable projects capable of reaching financial close. NDB approved approximately US$3.17 billion across 19 projects in 2025, highlighting the scale of capital available. - Use NDB to widen Ghana’s financing options.
NDB should complement the World Bank, AfDB, IFC and other partners, creating greater capital market optionality, competitive pricing and structuring flexibility. - Make local value creation part of the investment proposition.
Where commercially viable, BRICS backed investments should include skills development, local procurement, supplier development and technology transfer. - Use BRICS to accelerate energy diversification.
Pursue opportunities in renewables, storage, biofuels, EVs and other emerging technologies while maintaining strategic investment in oil and gas to support energy security. - Position Ghana as a West African energy hub.
Prioritise projects that can support regional power trading, petroleum logistics, gas infrastructure and energy exports. - Maintain a commercially driven, multi partner strategy.
BRICS should expand Ghana’s options, not replace existing Western and multilateral partners. The objective is more competition for Ghana’s projects and better financing terms. - Measure the return on BRICS engagement.
Track capital mobilized, projects reaching financial close, investment attracted, capacity added, jobs created, technology transferred and local procurement generated.
Conclusion
Viewed through the energy lens, Ghana’s BRICS strategy is ultimately a question of capital, optionality and leverage.
The financing case is clear. Ghana needs approximately US$4.4 billion of energy investment between 2025 and 2030, with US$2.6 billion expected from private sources. At the same time, the NDB approved US$3.17 billion across 19 projects in 2025 and ended the year with an active portfolio of more than US$35.6 billion.
That makes the NDB interesting, but the bigger prize is the ecosystem around it. BRICS can give Ghana access to additional pools of capital, technology, industrial partners and markets across power, gas, renewables, storage, electric mobility and alternative fuels.
The strategic point is not to replace Western capital with BRICS capital. That would simply replace one dependency with another. The smarter play is to widen the field, increase competition for Ghana’s projects and give the country more leverage over the price, structure, technology and terms of investment.
Ultimately, BRICS should be judged like any other investment proposition: what does Ghana get for it?
If it helps Ghana finance projects that would otherwise struggle to reach financial close, strengthen energy security, attract private capital, build domestic capability and establish Ghana as a competitive energy platform for West Africa, then BRICS becomes more than a geopolitical alignment.
It becomes a capital allocation strategy. And that is where its real value lies.
By: Robert Carl Nuacoo Nunoo, General Manager, Green Transition and Alternative Fuels, BOST Energies