Angola’s downstream regulator revealed this week that the country was able to bring 140,185 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to the domestic market in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 – an increase of 15%.

According to the Instituto Regulador dos Derivados do Petróleo (IRDP), 68% of this was provided by Angola’s $12bn LNG plant in Soyo on the island of Kwanda, an asset with the capacity to produce 5.2mn tonnes of LNG per year.

The facility is owned and operated by Angola LNG Ltd., an entity comprised of various domestic and foreign energy companies, including Angola's Sonangol, Chevron (US) and TotalEnergies (France).

In a presentation on the previous year’s results, the IRDP noted that the country’s oil derivatives market had generally seen strong growth in Q4, with 1.3mn metric tonnes of LPG purchased for distribution, according to Energy Capital & Power. A large portion of oil derivatives highlighted included petrol and diesel, which made up 27% and 60% of the sales, respectively.

Alongside increasing sales, the IRDP also said that it had issued 119 new licences, with 69 of these accounting for first-time licences, 509 accounting for imports and 135 for inspections.

IRDP’s reveal signifies progress in Angola’s plans to increase LPG by demand by 31% – a target that was first announced by the country’s state-owned gas company Sonagas, which said last year that it expected LPG demand to increase significantly between 2024 and 2027.

Angola’s LPG demand previously grew from 447,000 tonnes per year to around 472,000 tonnes per year between 2022 and 2023 – an increase of 5.59%. Of this growth, 60% was recorded to have occurred in urban areas, according to Energy Capital & Power.

In 2024, Sonagas highlighted that increased LPG demand would mostly be seen in Angola’s industrial sector, with the largest consumers including local steel mills, pulp and paper manufacturers and ceramics.

Notably, Angola’s largest LPG producers – outputting the largest amounts of butane – include Chevron’s Sanha gas processing complex (19%), Malongo refinery (3%), and the government-run Luanda refinery (5%).

Plans to introduce more LPG into homes and industries were properly put into action at the start of September 2024, when Angola invested in the delivery of more LPG for cooking and encouraged the take-up of the gas in the industrial sector for use in drying processes and furnaces.

Despite this, issues with road quality continue to hamper plans for LPG growth, with distribution trucks struggling to traverse often outdated and underfunded infrastructure. These roads move into the country from Soyo and four dedicated carriers at coastal terminals in Luanda – the main port of Namibe province.