Gabon’s minister for universal access to water and energy, Philippe Tonangoye, will travel to Cape Town in late September to pitch a suite of gas-, hydro- and ship-based power projects worth nearly CFA 1.2 trillion (US $1.93 billion) to developers and lenders gathering at African Energy Week, according to officials involved in conference planning.
Top of the deck is the 125-megawatt Orinko gas-to-power plant outside Libreville. The project reached a shareholders’ agreement in May with Africa50, Gabon Power Co., Wärtsilä and Melec PowerGen and will be built under an independent-power-producer model that hands the asset to the state after payback.
Mr. Tonangoye will also showcase two Turkish-built powerships that came online in February, adding 250 MW—about a quarter of Gabon’s current output—and reducing chronic outages in Libreville and Port-Gentil. The five-year charter, signed in 2024 with Karpowership, forms the bridge while Orinko and new hydro schemes ramp up. 
Financing tools are tightening around a new National Energy and Water Fund (FNEE), seeded earlier this year to revive stalled assets such as the 125 MW Owendo thermal plant scheduled for 2027 and the Ngoulmendjim and Impératrice Eugénie hydro projects, which together need roughly US $453 million. The fund is mandated to offload political-risk premiums through guarantees and co-investment, people briefed on the term sheet said.
The pitch to investors is straightforward: natural-gas baseload backed by floating barges today, hydro and renewables tomorrow. If Tonangoye secures commitments, Gabon could lift household electrification from 93 % in cities but barely half in rural areas to universal access by 2030, while positioning offshore gas—and not imported diesel—as the anchor fuel for its transition plan.
