FG to ‘foreclose’ licences of gas flaring companies by 2020
Federal Government would be taking tougher measures to stamp out gas flaring in the country by 2020 as Emmanuel Ibeh Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, said the government would forclose licences of companies still carrying out gas flaring by 2020.
The minister who disclosed this on Monday in Abuja at the Gas Aggregation Company Nigeria Limited event, said the idea of companies paying for the flared gas would not suffice for the foreclosure of their respective companies.
“At the renewal of their licenses, we would be making greater demands of the infrastructure they have built in addressing the gas flaring concerns. It is going to be a key determinant factor,” Kachikwu said.
He directed companies to seek proper ways of adding value to the flared gas through the opportunities provided by the Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme, rather than resorting to easy way out by paying fines.
He explained that the objective of the Nigera Gas Flare commercialisation programme was to ensure third parties participate in gas commercialisation and to enable the country significantly reduce the amount of flared gas while also seeking ways to develop it.
On domestic gas supply, the minister directed various companies in the domestic oil and gas sector business to ensure increased value addition specifically in processing noting that,
“The era of harvesting and exporting raw materials in raw form is over since there are lots of jobs to be created along the value chains,” he said.
He adds further that the processing of raw materials would be given greater priority, while also stating that issues bothering on Gas pricing would be addressed to grow investors’ confidence.
The federal Government brought the Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme in 2017,to enable it address concerns of the Gas flaring by 2020.
The strategy adopted by the federaol government in the Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisailtion programme is to provide a commercial approach to the elimination of routine Gas by 2020 and drive postive social,environmental and economic impacts in the Niger Delta by mobilising private sector capital towards gas flare capture projects.