02Building Value
Energy
Powering Africa's Future
No country industrialises, creates jobs or raises living standards without reliable, affordable, sustainable energy.
Africa holds some of the world's richest energy resources — oil, gas, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, and the critical minerals underpinning the global transition.
Platform
2 of 14
Building Value — Mobilising capital and delivering the assets, enterprises and industries on which African economies are built.
Practice engine
FIT
Why this matters
Energy is the foundation upon which modern economies are built.
No country can industrialise, attract investment, create jobs, expand manufacturing, or improve living standards without reliable, affordable and sustainable energy.
Africa possesses some of the world's richest energy resources, including oil, natural gas, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and critical minerals that underpin the global energy transition. At the same time, the continent continues to face significant challenges in expanding energy access, financing large-scale infrastructure, strengthening regional power markets, and navigating the transition towards lower-carbon energy systems.
Governments, utilities, financiers, developers and investors therefore require advisers who understand not only the legal framework but also the commercial realities, financing structures, regulatory environments and institutional dynamics that shape successful energy projects.
What clients bring to this platform
- Secure licences and approvals
- Structure bankable projects
- Negotiate host government arrangements
- Allocate construction and operational risks
- Achieve financial close
- Navigate environmental and social obligations
- Manage community and stakeholder relationships
- Comply with local content requirements
- Resolve disputes
- Restructure projects when circumstances change
What we do
The Platform provides integrated advisory services across the full energy value chain.
Oil & Gas
- Upstream exploration and production
- Production Sharing Agreements
- Joint Operating Agreements
- Farm-in and farm-out transactions
- Midstream transportation
- Pipelines
- Storage facilities
- Refining
- Downstream distribution
- Local content
- Host government arrangements
Power
- Generation
- Transmission
- Distribution
- Independent Power Projects
- Rural electrification
- Mini-grids
- Utility reform
- Electricity regulation
- Power Purchase Agreements
- Grid access
Renewable Energy
- Solar
- Wind
- Hydro
- Biomass
- Geothermal
- Battery storage
- Hybrid energy systems
Energy Transition
- Green hydrogen
- Carbon markets
- Energy efficiency
- Decarbonisation
- Climate finance
- Transition strategies
- Sustainable investment
Energy Finance
- Project finance
- PPPs
- Export credit financing
- Development finance
- Refinancing
- Debt restructuring
- Investment structuring
Energy Regulation
- Licensing
- Tariffs
- Market reform
- Regulatory compliance
- Competition
- Sector governance
Signature solutions
Defined pieces of work that address the needs this platform meets most often. Each can be scoped and commissioned on its own.
Integrated Energy Project Development Programme
One coordinated team carrying an energy project from concept to operation — structuring, permits, land, power purchase and offtake agreements, EPC and O&M contracting — under one named partner, from first approval to commercial operation date.
Energy Local Content Programme
The Ligomarc Advocates Local Content Method, energy application. A phased participation plan, enforceable supply-chain clauses and regulator-ready reporting that satisfy local content obligations while building African skills, suppliers and jobs without pricing the project out of the market.
Utility Governance Transformation Programme
A governance reform programme for utilities and state-owned energy enterprises: board composition and mandate, performance and accountability frameworks, commercial discipline, and the sequencing to implement them. Designed by people who have run a distressed public enterprise, not only advised one.
How we deliver
- Strategy and feasibility
- Regulatory and legal structuring
- Commercial and financial structuring
- Procurement and contracting
- Financing and financial close
- Construction and implementation
- Operations, optimisation and expansion
- Restructuring, dispute avoidance and dispute resolution where required
Representative mandates
- Advising on the development of a national oil project
- Supporting the financing of a renewable energy programme
- Advising lenders on energy infrastructure investments
- Structuring regional power transmission projects
- Supporting governments on energy sector reforms
- Advising utilities on governance transformation
- Supporting sponsors through financial close
- Advising investors on cross-border energy transactions
Illustrative. Client names and commercial details are withheld where confidentiality obligations apply.
Why Ligomarc
The Energy Advisory Platform brings together specialists in energy law, project finance, infrastructure, environmental and social governance, tax, technology, disputes and public policy.
Working collaboratively with the other Strategic Advisory Platforms, the team delivers integrated solutions that enable clients to develop, finance, govern and operate energy projects throughout Africa.
A Recommendation Before We Continue
Institutional Experience Applied. We act on the State side in international arbitration arising from the buy-out of a regulated utility concession, covering terminal payment formulae, the finality of regulatory disallowances, quantum and regulatory economics expert evidence, and the treatment of tax in awards. Separately, we have operated a distressed licensed national operator under court appointment — maintaining licences, service continuity and payroll throughout. Our advice on utility distress, concession exit and tariff exposure is therefore operational and forensic as well as legal.
Platform leadership
Regional & continental frameworks
The African Single Electricity Market and the AU Continental Power System Masterplan; the Eastern Africa Power Pool; PIDA and its Priority Action Plan; AU Agenda 2063 energy flagships; EAC energy security and regional interconnection frameworks; the Paris Agreement including Article 6; national electricity and petroleum statutes and licensing regimes across the region.
Contribution to the African Purposes
Advances African Continental Integration through regional power trade, cross-border interconnection and harmonised licensing. Advances African Institutional Stewardship by building regulatory capability and defensible tariff decisions. Respects African Culture & Heritage through community consent, resettlement and benefit-sharing frameworks on generation and transmission sites.
Selected experience
All experience →Agro-industrial producer
Reported
US$40m bagasse power plant financing
An agro-industrial producer sought to finance a biomass power plant converting a by-product of its core operation into grid-connected generation, requiring both project and corporate financing logic to align.
- Project Finance
- Energy
- Agriculture
National energy regulator
Reported
Licence-amendment dispute in the electricity sector
A contested amendment to a major distribution concession put the regulator's authority, and the commercial terms of the country's largest electricity licence, before the courts.
- Disputes
- Energy
- Regulation
Hydropower project
Reported
Procurement and PPP framework for a major hydropower project
A large hydropower development required a procurement and partnership framework capable of surviving public scrutiny while remaining acceptable to an international EPC contractor and its financiers.
- Infrastructure
- PPP
- Energy
Oil and gas development
Reported
Project governance and commercial-risk strategy for an oil and gas development
A high-value oil and gas project needed strategic legal and governance support spanning public approvals, joint-venture alignment, contractual risk and cost recovery, with first production at stake.
- Oil & Gas
- Governance
- Special Situations
Who we serve with this
Discuss a energy mandate.
Describe the situation in confidence and we will route it to the partner accountable for this platform.