How to build a US$3trn West African energy market

West Africa is no longer in a phase of energy potential; it is in a phase of energy system construction. For decades, the conversation about West Africa’s energy future has centred on its resources: oil and gas reserves, significant renewable energy potential, growing electricity demand, a young and rapidly urbanising population, and strategic access to international markets. However, resources alone do not create prosperity. The key question is whether West Africa can build the market architecture to convert these resources into sustained economic value, deeper regional trade, greater investment, and better lives for its people. The answer is yes—if we think in systems, not projects. Individual refineries, pipelines, power plants, transmission lines, and storage facilities matter, but their true economic value emerges when they become components of an integrated market. The opportunity lies in creating a US$3 trillion cumulative energy market transaction value by 2035. A large energy market is defined by efficient energy movement, easy buyer-seller transactions, reliable infrastructure access, effective capital mobilisation, and confident cross-border investment. Today, regional refined-product demand has grown from 370,000 barrels per day in 2000 to nearly one million barrels per day, yet only a handful of countries have meaningful refining capacity. Similarly, only a small proportion of electricity is traded across borders despite extensive interconnection infrastructure and regional power-market institutions. The imbalance lies in fragmented systems for monetising energy resources and inefficient mechanisms for matching supply with demand across borders. To address this, we propose a **Hub–Node–Spoke model**: - **Lagos** as an Atlantic liquidity and refining hub. - **Abidjan** as a western commercial and logistics hub. - **Ghana** as a central balancing and storage node. - **Senegal** as a north-western gateway node. From these hubs, spokes connect producers, refineries, storage facilities, power markets, industrial centres, ports, and consumers. This model reflects existing trade flows, infrastructure corridors, population centres, and emerging assets. Regulatory integration is critical. The **WARF Regulatory Passport System** ensures that if a company, trader, or infrastructure operator is licensed and compliant in one jurisdiction, that certification is recognised across participating jurisdictions, subject to agreed standards and safeguards. This reduces duplication, shortens transaction times, improves regulatory certainty, and lowers the cost of doing business across borders. Physical integration alone is insufficient. We must also solve payment, credit, liquidity, and settlement challenges. West Africa already has foundations like the **ECO** (proposed single currency) and the **Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS)**. We propose a **US$3 billion West African energy market liquidity and infrastructure facility**, initially anchored in the Naira but designed to be PAPSS-settled, multi-currency, and compatible with an eventual ECO transition. This facility will enable African energy trades to be cleared, settled, and scaled within Africa, addressing capital shortages for energy infrastructure and cross-border trade. Markets require talent. **WASF (West African School of Finance)** and **ATEM (African Training and Education for Markets)** should be treated as market infrastructure, training professionals in regulation, commodity trading, energy financing, benchmarking, and risk management. Training must happen alongside market development to ensure professionals understand both infrastructure and commercial agreements. The ultimate test of an integrated energy market is its impact on energy poverty. A US$3 trillion market must reduce access, affordability, reliability, clean cooking, and productive energy use for households and businesses. Every infrastructure project must answer: Does it increase productive energy access? If not, it is not development—it is merely infrastructure. We must act with urgency. The global energy system is shifting, capital is moving, and supply chains are restructuring. West Africa cannot wait for perfect regulations, completed infrastructure, or a mature market. We must design while building, finance while regulating, train while trading, and integrate while expanding. The time for potential is over; the time for construction is now. This is not just an energy-sector ambition—it is an economic-development ambition. A deeper energy market can support manufacturing, strengthen agriculture, expand trade, create new financial markets, and improve African businesses’ competitiveness. By executing this vision, West Africa can become one of the world’s most important integrated energy markets, mobilising capital, reducing energy poverty, and retaining value generated by its own resources.