Companies · Ardova Plc

A Danish infrastructure fund is handing Africa's largest CNG distributor to a Nigerian fuel company

On Friday, September 25, A.P. Moller Capital announced it is selling its stake in Powergas, the compressed natural gas company it has backed since 2019, to a consortium led by Ardova Plc and Diadem Energy.

Powergas didn't start as a gas company. It began in 2008 as an independent power plant operator, supplying power solutions to factories, with early projects in Lagos including Lekki Phase 1 clients Telmek Energy Solutions and Jason Utilities. The pivot to compressed natural gas came later, once the company recognised that many of its customers sat beyond the reach of Nigeria's pipeline network. Compression and virtual-pipeline delivery, trucking gas to where the pipes didn't go, became the model that turned Powergas into what its owners now call Africa's largest CNG producer and distributor.

A.P. Moller Capital entered through Impala Energy Holdings in April 2019, its Africa Infrastructure Fund I's first investment, specifically to back a flare-gas monetisation project at what became Powergas Ebedei Limited. Working alongside local partners and management, A.P. Moller Capital supported the company through development, construction, commissioning and operational scale-up. Operations commenced in 2020, the Ebedei compression plant was commissioned in 2021, and distribution expanded across Nigeria's South-East, South-South and South-West.

What's being sold is precise, even if the price isn't public. The consortium is acquiring 100 percent of both Powergas Global Investments Nigeria Limited and Powergas Ebedei Limited, the two entities together known as Powergas. A.P. Moller Capital partner Sam Senbanjo said the company had "progressed from a concept into an operational CNG business since the investment in 2019," enabling customers to access domestic gas beyond the reach of the pipeline network. Neither the purchase price nor A.P. Moller Capital's own stated reason for exiting now, rather than continuing to hold, has been made public.

The buyers aren't strangers to the business. Ardova is a Nigerian integrated energy company already running retail fuel stations, LPG distribution, shipping, aviation fuel and logistics, and the deal gives it a natural gas platform to add to that list. Diadem Energy is already Powergas Ebedei's virtual-pipeline logistics partner, moving compressed gas by road to industrial customers. Diadem Group chairman Dr George Eluwa said the transaction would let his company "expand the delivery of natural gas beyond conventional pipeline networks." Standard Bank and FirstCap advised Ardova and Diadem on the deal. Citi advised Powergas.

The transaction isn't finished. It's subject to regulatory approval, and A.P. Moller Capital expects it to close only around the end of 2026.

For now, what changed on Friday is ownership on paper, not operations on the ground. The compression plants keep running. The trucks keep moving gas past the reach of the pipeline network. What's different is who collects the return on that infrastructure once the paperwork clears, and why a seven-year investor decided this was the year to hand it to a buyer that already knew the business from the inside.