The Control Risks analyst who follows Lusophone economies told Lusa on Wednesday that the idea of the Ukraine conflict serving as a catapult for the African gas sector is exaggerated given the challenges in the region.

"To see this latest geopolitical development between Russia and the West as an opportunity for sub-Saharan African gas to catapult itself onto the world stage is to underestimate the existing challenges and exaggerate the ability for [the countries] to overcome them," Marisa Lourenço told Lusa.

At issue is the attempt by Western countries to diversify gas purchases from Russia, and the prospect that gas-producing African countries may be a viable alternative.

"European countries will certainly continue to explore possibilities for purchases from Africa's largest gas producers, but this will be done mainly through case-by-case agreements, not a seismic shift," said Marisa Lourenço.

According to the analyst, "the recent debate over sanctions on Russia's gas exports has shown that European nations are unlikely to turn their backs on Russian gas, so sub-Saharan Africa is only one part of the puzzle."

Russia is the leading gas supplier to Europe, accounting for 32% of purchases from European countries, compared to 8% from Nigeria, for example, which is the largest gas and oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.

The main difficulty, said Marisa Lourenço, is that "although some countries may help diversification, the impact will only be visible in two or three years, because the state of development of the market is still not very mature, which means that producers are not prepared to increase production on a large scale, to which must be added the high operational risks.