Contents

• General State of the Economy
• Energy resources
• Energy Balance
• Energy Infrastructure
• Education and Innovation
• Ecology and Environment Protection
• References

Ivory Coast, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Côte d’Ivoire is bounded by Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, and Ghana to the east.  On the south Côte d’Ivoire is washed by the Atlantic Ocean, with a total coastline of 590 km.
According to 2023 statistics, Ivory Coast is home to about 29 million people. In terms of population density the country is 129^th in the world from 249 countries considered. The national capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. The city of Yamoussoukro is located in the center of the country is viewed as a legislative capital of Côte d’Ivoire. The political form of government is a presidential republic and the administrative map of the country is divided into 12 districts and 2 autonomous districts. French is the official language of the Republic, with dozens of different local indigenous languages spoken in the country [1,2,3]. 
 

Source: [1,2,3,4,5]

The rating positions of Côte d’Ivoire relative to other countries have been determined for an extensive list of economic, energy, innovative and educational indices, as well as for metrics reflecting the state of the environment. The economic indices include, for example, GDP per capita, annual average GDP growth, high-technology exports, and others. The list of energy indices includes proven reserves of oil, gas and coal, production-consumption ratio combined, and energy use, etc. Each of the indices has a ranked list of included member countries. Since the number of countries in each rating is different for each index, the positioning of the country of interest is displayed on a special chart, where the vertical axis is a uniform relative scale from 0 to 1, whereas the horizontal axis denominates the various indices and respective numbers relating to the descriptions given underneath.
Thus, in such a relative “0-1” diagram, the country’s position is marked with a dot in proportion to its location in the original rating list. If the country is among the leaders regarding the selected indicator, it will be marked close to 1 in the upper green zone on the relevant chart “0-1”, if the country is an outsider in the rating list, then it will be marked in the lower red zone of the chart “0-1”, etc.

Ranking position of Côte d’Ivoire for list of economic indices:
 

Côte d'Ivoire has some proven reserves of fossil fuels, mainly located offshore. The share of oil reserves in the country relative to the world's reserves is 0.006%, the share of natural gas is 0.014%. In terms of tons of oil equivalent, according to 2024 data, conventional proved reserves by fuel type were: 65.2% – natural gas, 34.8% – oil (Fig.5). 

Table 1. Fossil energy resources of Côte d'Ivoire

* share of the country’s reserves in world total is provided in brackets

Côte d'Ivoire has a high potential for renewable energy, including hydropotential. The country has several large rivers, on which hydropower infrastructures have already been built. As of 2022, hydropower in Côte d'Ivoire accounted for about 30% of electricity generation. Although periods of severe drought sometimes lead to interruptions in supply, the realization of untapped hydropotential could be a cornerstone for the development of the energy sector.

Table 2. Renewable energy resources of Côte d'Ivoire

*for the majority of the territory of the country

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Mar 2024) / https://www.eia.gov

Figure 2. The Production and Consumption of fossil fuels in Côte d'Ivoire (left — coal, in the center — gas, right — oil)

A great part of Ivorian primary energy demand is covered by domestic oil and natural gas production. Natural gas production, shown in the graph above, has decreased slightly over the ten years to 31.4 thousand barrels per day. During the same period, oil consumption more than doubled, far exceeding the country's internal capacity to produce it. 

Ivorian electricity sector is dominated by thermal generation, which accounted for almost 70% of the country's electricity production in 2022. Hydropower accounted for about 30%, while other renewable energy sources such as solar and wind contributed less than 1%. Both electricity generation and consumption almost doubled between 2010 and 2022. The country is fully self-sufficient in electricity and regularly exports it to neighboring countries. However, it should be noted that not all people in the country have access to electric power, especially in rural areas, where more than half of the population lives without electricity.

A territorial map showing the distribution of the largest fossil fuel sector infrastructure projects in Côte d'Ivoire is presented in Figure 5. As noted earlier, natural gas reserves account for about 65% of all proven fossil fuel reserves, followed by oil. Most natural gas and oil production activity is concentrated in the south-eastern coastal basin, where several offshore fields have been discovered. The largest oil fields are Lion and Panthere, the oil from which is piped to the refinery in Abidjan.  The country also operates the Baobab heavy oil field, which is located 25 kilometres off the coast, south of the Espoir field.

Figure 5. Basic infrastructural facilities of the fossil fuel sector in Côte d'Ivoire

In recent years, significant new offshore oil and gas reserves have been discovered in the country. One of these is the Baleine field, which has estimated reserves of 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil and 3,300 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The project is considered to be one of the largest hydrocarbon findings of Cote d’Ivoire [12].

Figure 6. Electricity production and Renewable energy in Côte d'Ivoire

Ivorian electricity sector is dominated by generation from fossil fuels, mainly natural gas, which provided about 70% of the electricity in 2022. The thermal power plants in Côte d'Ivoire are mainly located in the south of the country, in Soubré, San Pédro and Abidjan, and the south-western region is powered by hydropower plants. Thus, the northern and eastern parts of the country do not have any power plants and are supplied with electricity through the main 225 kV transmission line, which runs across the border to neighboring countries such as the Republic of Mali and Burkina Faso. Ciprel Thermal Power Plant with the installed capacity 543 MW is the biggest power plant in the country.
Hydropower plays an important role in energy production in Côte d'Ivoire, accounting for about 30% of the total electricity generated. The country has both small and medium-sized hydropower plants and large hydropower plants, the most important of which are located on the main rivers Sassandra and Bandama. The largest of these is the 275 megawatt Soubre power plant.
By 2030, the Government of Côte d'Ivoire aims to create an energy mix in which 42% will come from renewable energy sources. Hydropower should be one of the main pillars in achieving this plan. A number of additional projects are planned to increase hydroelectric capacity in the coming years. One of them is the 44 MW Singrobo hydroelectric project on the Bandama River in the Lagunes region. The project includes a 3.5 kilometer transmission line and a substation to connect the generated electricity to the existing grid [13].
In addition, the Government of Côte d'Ivoire aims to achieve an electrification rate of 100 % by 2025. However, there are remote areas in the country where the grid is unlikely to arrive before 2025, so the development of off-grid solar power could be an effective way to meet this demand [14].

[1] List of sovereign states and dependencies by area / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_area
[2] List of countries and dependencies by population density / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density
[3] Côte d'Ivoire / The world factbook / Library / Central Intelligence Agency / www.cia.gov
[4] GDP, PPP (constant 2011 international $) / World Bank, International Comparison Program database. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[5] GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) / World Bank, International Comparison Program database. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[6] International Energy Statistic / Geography  / U.S. Energy Information Administration / www.eia.gov/beta/international/
[7] Solar resource data obtained from the Global Solar Atlas, owned by the World Bank Group and provided by Solargis / Global Solar Atlas / globalsolaratlas.info
[8] Wind Map / Global Wind Atlas 2.0, a free, web-based application developed, owned and operated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in partnership with the World Bank Group, utilizing data provided by Vortex, with funding provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). For additional information: globalwindatlas.info
[9] Agricultural land (% of land area) /Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[10] Forest area (% of land area) /Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[11] What a Waste 2.0 (PDF) / Resources / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[12]  Oil & Natural Gas / Sector - Specific Activities / https://www.economie-ivoirienne.ci/en/activites-sectorielles/oil-natural-gas.html
[13]  EAIF lending €25 million to construct 44-MW Singrobo hydroelectric plant / 27.7.2021 / https://www.hydroreview.com/business-finance/finance/eaif-lending-e25-million-to-construct-44-mw-singrobo-hydroelectric-plant/#gref
[14]  GOGLA - Côte d’Ivoire / https://www.gogla.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Cote-dIvoire-Country-Brief.pdf

The sources of charts and curves are specified under the images.

For more information about the energy industry in Côte d’Ivoire see here