When asked about the importance of Nigeria’s revolutionary oil refinery pioneered by Aliko Dangote, already the world’s seventh largest, Rüya Bayegan, CEO of BGN Group, stated that “I cannot see why this [Dangote’s ambitions] cannot be replicated in other countries in Africa.”
For context, the growth of the BGN Group from a regional player into a global business is largely attributed to Bayegan.
Under her guidance, BGN has emerged as an international leader in energy trading with a focus on low-carbon fuels.
As well as being a major player in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), BGN is widening its portfolio to expand into liquefied natural gas (LNG), sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and critical metals and minerals.
Amid its continued expansion, the company is playing an active role in emboldening energy supply to meet rising demand on the African continent.
BGN, already a preferred LPG and gasoline supplier to Egypt, is one of the major international companies that will partner to supply Egypt with up to 160 cargoes of LNG through 2026, in a procurement contract announced last year.
Looking to Morocco, BGN operates fuel terminals in three strategic locations, positioning itself as a key distributor of diesel and gasoline nationwide in doing so.
These facilities also make BGN one of the cornerstones of energy reliability in the Mediterranean basin, aligning with regional goals for supply security, infrastructure resilience and responsible sourcing.
This alignment is by design and is key to the company’s expansion agenda in Africa. In July 2025 BGN US signed a landmark agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) Centre for Expertise, Evaluation and Certification of Precious and Semi-Precious Mineral Substances (Centre d’Expertise d’Evaluation et de Certification – CEEC) to historically establish the country’s first direct marketing and purchasing platform – the Commodity Center BGN IMCC – for the country’s critical minerals and metals.
In this first-of-its-kind joint venture, BGN will provide the platform that will enable the DRC government and the CEEC to realise its vision of strengthening the country’s management and control of its own mineral wealth – improving extraction and global sales of DRC minerals, while ensuring good governance and transparency throughout the supply chain.
The agreement also includes support for artisanal miners and fair-trade principles that favour local communities, as well as measures to cut losses from informal circuits and unregulated intermediaries.
Wael Amer, Group Chief Operating Officer of BGN, said that “the new Commodity Center is a significant step that will strengthen the DRC’s position within the global commodities market and ensure transparency throughout its supply chain.”
The DRC announcement was closely followed by BGN’s appointment of Claire Blanchelande, the company’s first Global Head of Metals, signalling its commitment to also setting up a new metals trading desk. In addition to opening its metals trading book the company is looking to identify future opportunities to invest in upstream mining infrastructure and operations in regions including the African continent.
The International Energy Agency and a 2024 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) publication suggest that Africa holds about 30% of global critical mineral reserves of lithium, commonly recognised as a critical mineral necessary to the global energy transition. As documented by UNCTAD, Africa also accounts for roughly 55% of global cobalt reserves, 47.7% of manganese, 21.6% of natural graphite, 5.9% of copper and 5.6% of nickel.
A replicable model
BGN’s particular strategy of integrating energy trading, logistics and digital resource governance provides a model which is commercially viable and highly replicable; one which enables African nations like the DRC to use technological advancements and trusted partners to take sovereign control of their own mineral resources and access global markets, while redirecting wealth generation to the benefit of the country and its people.
It mirrors a broader wave of reinvestment by other major global energy and commodity companies
Glencore, for instance, has invested billions into its copper and cobalt assets in the DRC, reaffirming its long-term commitment to responsible resource development and partnering with the Congolese government to strengthen transparency.
And in Southern Africa Ivanhoe Mines—backed by substantial new investment from Gulf sovereign funds—is rapidly scaling its copper operations, with energy-transition capital flowing directly into African mining infrastructure.
Such properly structured deals, brokered with the right political and security support from trusted partners, can place African nations on equal footing with global trading powers in future.
International energy companies like BGN are ramping up their role in strengthening Africa’s trading power – and as they expand in reach, they are elevating Africa’s global presence and enabling the continent to achieve much greater resource and wealth management equality.
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) in Washington DC.