Nigeria gas minister presses for domestic utilisation of 209 TCF Reserves

Ekperikpe Ekpo, minister of state for petroleum resources (gas) has on Wednesday called for sweeping reforms to convert the country’s enormous natural gas stockpile into tangible energy access for households and industries, warning that underground reserves alone will not deliver the economic transformation Nigerians are waiting for.

Speaking through his representative, Ikenma Irene, director of midstream and downstream at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, at the Association of Local Distributors of Gas (ALDG) Business Forum 2026 in Abuja, Ekpo framed the country’s defining energy question in blunt terms: Nigeria holds more than 209 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, among the largest concentrations on the planet, yet millions of its citizens and businesses remain cut off from reliable gas supply.

“Nigeria’s development will not be measured by the volume of gas beneath our soil, but by the extent to which that gas powers industries, supports households, creates jobs, and fuels sustainable economic growth,” Ekpo said in his keynote address, delivered on the forum’s theme: From Gas Abundance to Gas Access: Reassessing Nigeria’s Gas Distribution Imperatives.

The remarks arrive at a moment of renewed urgency for Africa’s most populous nation. Years of underinvestment in midstream and downstream infrastructure, chronic pipeline vandalism, and fragmented market structures have left Nigeria unable to fully monetise reserves that rank it among the world’s most gas-endowed nations. The gap between what lies underground and what reaches end users has become, in the minister’s framing, the central challenge of the country’s energy transition.

Ekpo pointed to the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) of 2021 as a structural turning point, arguing the legislation has hardened the legal and regulatory scaffolding needed to draw in private capital, widen infrastructure coverage, and inject market discipline across the gas value chain. He also highlighted the administration of President Bola Tinubu’s continued push under the Decade of Gas initiative — a policy framework designed to accelerate domestic gas utilisation and position Nigeria as a gas-powered economy rather than a gas-exporting one.

The minister offered a pointed historical comparison. Industrialised economies, he noted, did not achieve their development trajectories simply because of resource wealth. What set them apart was the construction of systems — regulatory, infrastructural, and market-based — that made energy reliably accessible to producers and consumers alike. Nigeria, he argued, must now build those same systems at speed.

“Nigeria must now move decisively from gas abundance to gas accessibility,” Ekpo said. “The success of this vision requires policy consistency, strong institutions, strategic investments, infrastructure expansion, security collaboration, and sustainable stakeholder partnerships.”

The minister praised ALDG for assembling operators, distributors, investors, and policymakers under one roof, calling the forum a critical vehicle for translating policy intent into ground-level action. He pressed participants to move beyond diagnosis and toward concrete, investment-backed solutions with measurable outcomes for end users.

“Let us move from gas abundance to gas access. Let us move from policy to implementation. Let us build a gas economy that works for all Nigerians,” he said, closing his address with a direct appeal for accountability across the sector.

Nigeria’s gas distribution sector has long struggled with the disconnect between upstream production and downstream delivery — a structural weakness that has suppressed industrial output, strained household energy budgets, and slowed job creation in manufacturing and processing industries. Wednesday’s forum, and the minister’s remarks, signal that the Federal Government intends to make closing that gap a defining economic priority in the years ahead.