BEENERGY Consult#LPG ADOPTION ADVISORY FOR CLEAN COOKING
Focus Groups Study
DRIVERS FOR #LPG ADOPTION FOR COOKING
To understand what really drives — or blocks — the switch from wood and charcoal to #LPG at household level, BEENERGY conducted a series of focus groups with women and household cooks in urban and peri-urban areas of several Sub-Saharan African markets. The sessions explored cooking practices, fuel preferences, spending patterns, safety perceptions and the decision-making process behind a first #LPG purchase.
Key findings — drivers of adoption: health and smoke-free kitchens come first, especially for mothers; time savings (no more fuel gathering, faster cooking); cleanliness of pots and kitchen walls; the modern, aspirational image of #LPG; and, critically, cost predictability — a cylinder is a one-time outlay that lasts weeks, while charcoal is bought daily at fluctuating prices.
Key findings — barriers: the upfront cost of the first cylinder and stove; fear of explosions, often rooted in accidents with poor-quality or illegally refilled cylinders; availability gaps in last-mile distribution; and the cultural attachment to traditional cooking, particularly for staple dishes.
Conclusions: adoption accelerates when the cost predictability of #LPG is actively explained to households — through public communication campaigns and, above all, practical cooking demonstrations and trials that let families experience #LPG cooking firsthand and compare it with their daily charcoal expenditure. Trust — in the brand, the cylinder and the refill network — emerged as the single most decisive adoption factor.
#LPG Development Expertise
Clean Cooking with #LPG — the core purpose of our expert group
Two billion people still cook with wood and charcoal. Every day, this means deforestation, indoor smoke, burned lungs and hours lost gathering fuel — mostly by women and children.
#LPG changes that equation. It is clean, immediately available, and the most realistic path to clean cooking at scale in Africa, Asia and Latin America today. But developing an #LPG market is not just about delivering cylinders: it takes sound regulation, bankable investment plans, safe infrastructure and last-mile distribution networks that reach households.
This is precisely where BEENERGY comes in. We are a group of senior #LPG practitioners — former executives of TotalEnergies, Puma Energy, SHV, Shell and national oil companies — who have spent our careers building and running #LPG businesses in 50+ markets across 4 continents. Today we advise both sides of the market: the governments and regulators who design national #LPG master plans, and the companies and investors who commit capital to them.
Scroll down to discover our expertise, our experts, our references and our latest publications.
50+#LPG markets covered
4continents of experience
30+years of operations
10+national #LPG master plans
Expertise
From national policy to plant-level safety: we cover the full value chain of #LPG development.
Advisory to Governments & Regulators
National #LPG master plans, pricing and subsidy strategies, safety and licensing frameworks, BCRM training and safety audits — in support of the Global #LPG Partnership and national authorities.
National #LPG Master Plans and investment plans (Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Madagascar)
National #LPG price structure and subsidy strategy recommendations (Cameroon)
Structured financing models for cylinders, filling plants and depots (Cameroon, Ghana)
Branded Cylinder Recirculating Model (BCRM) advisory (World Bank, AfDB, Honduras, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa, Bangladesh)
Advisory to #LPG Companies & Marketers
Strategic and operational advisory for investors, operators and marketers across the #LPG value chain.
Market strategic studies and #LPG demand projections
Benchmark business reviews and sales structure optimization
Investment feasibility studies and business plans
Due diligence for M&A and investments
Safety audits of installations (terminals, filling plants, depots)
Nationwide distributor training and safety audits of filling plants (Cameroon)
National design & construction guide for #LPG depots and filling plants
Technical training and organizational set-up
Microfinance programs to ease cylinder acquisition (Kenya, Cameroon)
Market data & intelligence
Data
Market sizes, pricing structures and penetration benchmarks across 50+ markets.
Insight
Benchmarks of successful #LPG markets and lessons for emerging ones.
Sustainable Distribution Model (BCRM)
All the drivers to enable the Branded Cylinder Recirculating Model in the #LPG regulation of licensing marketers.
Training
Operational and safety training for distributors, plant staff and regulators.
#LPG consumption Benchmark
#LPG consumption per capita as a function of GDP per capita — 20 countries distinguished by color and marker, each with its own polynomial trendline (degree 3 or 4, best fit), on a scale up to 10,000 current US$ per capita.
Why this correlation matters — even though it is not directly causal
Across our historical benchmark, 14 of the 22 countries show a correlation coefficient above 0.9 between #LPG consumption per capita and GDP per capita. Wealth is evidently not the direct cause of #LPG adoption — but the relationship is strong, stable and analytically robust. It provides a reliable baseline, #LPG/cap = f(GDP/cap), against which each country can be analysed individually: the countries that depart from the benchmark curve are precisely those where other factors dominate — pricing policy, supply chain structure, cylinder affordability, urbanization. Additional criteria will be layered in later, country by country, to explain these deviations and build realistic market forecasts.
Hover a point to see the country, values and the fit quality. Sources: GDP per capita in current US$, World Bank; national #LPG statistics.
The cooking energy is a bound value: 100% #LPG cannot exceed 20–25 kg/cap/year
Cooking #LPG is bound by the limit of quantity of food a human can eat, even for free, which is around 400 g for an adult, average 200 g for a child under 14. Therefore, the amount of energy for cooking is limited. The macro data of countries cooking only with #LPG in cylinders indicate 20 to 25 kg/cap/year. Given the consumption of biomass cannot be ascertained as for #LPG, focus groups on cooking in Africa indicate an average consumption of 125 kg of charcoal per capita per year (range 110–140) and of 625 kg of firewood (range 550–700 kg/cap/year). Translated into net energy, the values are: 0.2 kWh or 0.72 MJ per capita per meal.
The true global benchmark for 100% #LPG cooking is 23–25 kg/capita/year, measured cleanly only in household-instrumented markets: Brazil (bottled P13 segment, ~23 kg, near-100% access history spanning 30+ years) and India (14.2 kg cylinders via PSUs, ~25 kg, with a regulatory obligation to log every refill per household).
African horizon at 100% access: ~20 kg/capita/year, derived from the benchmark after demographic correction (~40% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is under 14; children eat roughly half rations; the adjustment is sub-linear due to the fixed per-meal overhead).
Measurement bias: Latin American market aggregates (25–30 kg) mix industrial/commercial bulk, autogas, and cylinders; the cylinder itself includes water heating, space-heating backup (Andean altiplano, northern Mexico), diverted vehicle fuel (cylinders in pickups, untaxed #LPG), and irrigation fuel; plancha tortilla cooking and frijoles overconsume. Statistical precision comes from the recording regime (India's PSU obligation; subsidy paperwork requirements: Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Morocco, El Salvador, Brazil).
The horizon for the #LPG cooking market in Africa converges to this limit — around 20–25 kg/cap/year — rather than growing indefinitely with income. The trajectories below, for Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, El Salvador, Brazil, Cabo Verde and India, illustrate this convergence toward an asymptote of 20–25 kg/cap/year.
Note: cooking with #LPG is considered affordable if the household spends slightly less than cooking with charcoal, on a monthly basis. The level of income has very little effect, because cooking is a necessity, and charcoal is not for free.
These figures cover bottled (cylinder) #LPG, essentially used for cooking. At the margin, a cylinder can also serve secondary uses such as water heating or lighting, which explains why some trajectories slightly exceed the pure cooking asymptote. The decline in Brazil's per-capita consumption can be read as the beginning of the conversion of cooking to electricity. It is also possible that a small portion is diverted illegally as vehicle fuel (El Salvador, Brazil). Correlation coefficients (R) shown next to each country confirm the robustness of the fit for most trajectories.
Zoom on the early-stage markets: where countries below 7 kg/cap stand
The countries that have not yet reached 8 kg per capita — Uganda, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Cameroon — are all positioned below 1,500 US$ per capita at their latest observation in this range. Their trajectories within the zoom appear as faint dots; the highlighted point marks each country's latest position. For contrast, the trendlines of five fast-evolving markets — Côte d'Ivoire, El Salvador, Cabo Verde, India and Senegal — show what a successful take-off looks like from the same starting zone. This is the space where #LPG markets are still to be built.
At around 1,000 US$ per capita, the countries still below 5 kg per capita — Nigeria, Uganda, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Cameroon and Bangladesh — could reasonably stand at 8–12 kg per capita, as the trajectories of the fast-evolving markets shown here demonstrate. This gap is not an anomaly: there are precise reasons behind it, which BEENERGY Consult can explain in detail for each market. This chart therefore demonstrates the potential of this group of countries: they are not structurally different, they are simply late.
Our Experts
Senior practitioners, not theorists — every BEENERGY expert has managed real #LPG operations before advising on them.
RB
Renzo E. Bee
CEO · France / Italy
30+ years in 50 #LPG markets across 4 continents. Former VP International #LPG Business at TotalEnergies (2012). Independent advisor for M&A, business plans, due diligence and strategic reviews. Chairman of the advisory group of The Global #LPG Partnership (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, DRC, Rwanda).
AF
Alphonse Frament
Partner & Associate · France
30+ years in 20 #LPG markets. Last assignment at Puma Energy (2015). Expert in business plans, feasibility, due diligence, training and company organization across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Europe. Senior Expert at The Global #LPG Partnership since 2017.
References
Corporate references — end of 2025. Selected assignments across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Drivers to Adopt #LPG for Cooking — focus groups study
To understand what really drives — or blocks — the switch from wood and charcoal to #LPG at household level, BEENERGY conducted a series of focus groups with women and household cooks in urban and peri-urban areas of several Sub-Saharan African markets. The sessions explored cooking practices, fuel preferences, spending patterns, safety perceptions and the decision-making process behind a first #LPG purchase.
Key findings — drivers of adoption: health and smoke-free kitchens come first, especially for mothers; time savings (no more fuel gathering, faster cooking); cleanliness of pots and kitchen walls; the modern, aspirational image of #LPG; and, critically, cost predictability — a cylinder is a one-time outlay that lasts weeks, while charcoal is bought daily at fluctuating prices.
Key findings — barriers: the upfront cost of the first cylinder and stove; fear of explosions, often rooted in accidents with poor-quality or illegally refilled cylinders; availability gaps in last-mile distribution; and the cultural attachment to traditional cooking, particularly for staple dishes.
Conclusions for market design: adoption accelerates when the cost predictability of #LPG is actively explained to households — through public communication campaigns and, above all, practical cooking demonstrations and trials that let families experience #LPG cooking firsthand and compare it with their daily charcoal expenditure. Trust — in the brand, the cylinder and the refill network — emerged as the single most decisive adoption factor.
BEENERGY expert group — qualitative study, focus groups with household users
2025National Master Plan
National #LPG Master Plan — investment plan update
Revision of the national #LPG development and investment plan, including cylinder financing models and last-mile distribution network design.
BEENERGY for the Global #LPG Partnership
2024Technical Guide
National Book of Design & Construction of #LPG Depots and Filling Plants
Rules-of-the-art reference for the design, construction and commissioning of #LPG storage and filling infrastructure.
G. Bruneval, R. E. Bee
2024Feasibility Study
Domestic #LPG Market Development in Kinshasa — #LPG versus Charcoal
Feasibility study comparing #LPG with charcoal for household cooking: demand assessment, economics and roll-out strategy.
BEENERGY expert group
2023BCRM Training
Branded Cylinder Recirculating Model — implementation handbook
Practical guide and training material on implementing the BCRM, based on missions with the World Bank, AfDB and national programs in Honduras, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa and Bangladesh.
R. E. Bee, A. Frament
2023Market Study
#LPG Price Structure & Subsidy Strategy Review
Recommendations on the national #LPG price structure and options for targeted subsidy strategies.
BEENERGY expert group
2022Safety Audit
Safety Audits of Filling Plants — nationwide program
Comprehensive safety audits of #LPG filling plants with corrective action plans and staff training.
G. Bruneval, F. Kebe
2022Microfinance Program
Microfinance to Ease Cylinder Acquisition
Design and implementation of microfinance programs to make first-time cylinder acquisition affordable for households.
B. Enonchong, E. Muchiri
2021Position Paper
Clean Cooking with #LPG: Drivers of #LPG Development
Overview of the key drivers of successful #LPG markets — benchmarking of 50+ markets across 4 continents.
R. E. Bee
Contact
Tell us about your market, your challenge or your investment — a senior expert will get back to you.
BEENERGY Consult SLU — International #LPG advisory group. Registered address: Carrer Josep Anselm Clavé 10, 17255 Begur, Spain. NIF (Spanish company registration number): B13732151. Contact: see the Contact section.
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Last updated: 6 November 2026
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