How equipped is Nigeria to attain the year 2020 gas flare exit target

The issue around gas flaring is a fight successive government in Nigeria has struggled to tackle. While government after government set out projections and targets concerning exiting gas flaring, the challenge however has always been the lack of political will to fully implement such targets.

Reports show that the Nigerian government had previously set 2020 deadline to end gas flaring, which is ten years ahead of the 2030 deadline set by the United Nations for the world to exit gas flaring.

Nigeria was previously the worst gas flaring nation in the world after Russia, but a number of Clean Development Mechanism, (CDM), projects aimed at appropriate gas utilisation have helped the country improve its standing in the global gas flaring chart to the sixth position.

The result of this flaring action is that Nigeria has been incurring losses in terms of revenue that would have accrued from the flared gas.

Statistics show that last year, the country lost an estimated $76.59 million (about N23.74 billion) per month as oil and gas companies operating in the country flared 25.53 billion standard cubic feet (SCF) of gas monthly.

Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, however, said recently that Nigeria is now about 70 percent compliant on gas flare exit.

The implication of this according to him, is that Nigeria is now utilising about 70 percent of the gas produced by oil firms in the process of crude oil production in one form or the other, including liquefaction and export, supply to power generating plants and for re-injection; while only about 30 percent is flared.

Kachikwu said the plan by the Federal Government is “to take away the remaining 30 percent within the 2020 deadline, adding that as part of efforts to effectively harness the nation’s abundant natural gas resources, the government would shift focus from oil to gas.

He further assured that government will change the dynamics from being an oil-producing country to being a gas producing country, because that is really what we are.

Analysts advocated for a strategic implementation of an agenda that will see to the monetisation of flared gas.

They observed that daily, Nigeria flares around 755 million standard cubic feet per day.

According to them, “Do you know how much we lose as a country, the carbon credit we would have gotten from this, the electricity we would have generated, the LPGs (liquefied petroleum gas) and the likes of those, even if they had have to go to any of the LNG (liquefied petroleum gas) trains”

Maikanti Baru, group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) reiterated the commitment of Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) as the highest gas supplier to Nigerian domestic market to the reduction and elimination of gas flaring to generate more revenue for the country.

He said the NNPC had put in place measures and facilities to curb gas flaring preparatory to the 2020 flare out deadline by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

The government announced the existence of 178 gas flare sites in the country as it lamented the burning of money that would have been used to generate wealth, create employment and also generate electricity for the people.

KELECHI EWUZIE