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With hundreds of millions of people living without electricity in the world's poorest continent, African countries are increasingly turning to gas to take advantage of lower global LNG prices amid a supply glut, MANA correspondent reported.

"It could be collectively a 20 to 30 million tons per year market by 2025," Tom Earl, vice president of gas and power development at the French oil major, said on the sidelines of a gas conference in Cape Town.

He said Egypt could be importing between 15 million-20 million tons annually within a decade, although actual volumes would depend on the development of its huge Zohr gas field, which had an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.

West Africa was seen importing five million tons a year, Southern Africa four million and Morocco two million tons by 2025, Earl said.

Egypt aims to import between 110 and 120 cargos of liquefied natural gas in 2017, the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding company (EGAS) said.

"Africa really is going to take a central role, the projects may be typically of smaller scale, but nevertheless they will collectively be very important," said Earl.

He said Total was focusing on gas-to-power projects around the world and wanted to develop downstream markets to increase the uptake of gas, which is seen as a cleaner alternative to harmful coal-fired plants.

"Total is willing to invest further downstream and that's important for us because it is developing future demand, future markets," he said.

The projects, estimated to cost around $3.7 billion.

Meanwhile, the Ivory Coast signed a partnership pact on Tuesday to create a consortium headed by Total to build an LNG import terminal that could begin receiving gas shipments by mid-2018.

The project aims to conceive, build and operate a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) with initial capacity of 100 million cubic feet that would gradually be brought up to 500 million cubic feet, according to an energy ministry statement.