As part of efforts to preserve the environment, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) at the weekend said it has succeeded in reducing gas flaring in the country by 26 percent in the last ten years.
Arising from a 36 per cent to 10 per cent decline, NNPC’s 26 percent lowering of the environment damaging practice has also improved Nigeria’s “green” image.
According to a statement issued by Ndu Ughamadu, group general manager, its group public affairs division, who is the corporation’s Ndu Ughamadu, group general manager, its group public affairs division, “this has moved Nigeria from the world’s second highest gas flaring nation in 2006 to the seventh position in 2016.
Explaining the gas flare reduction trend recently in Abuja, Bello Rabiu, NNPC’s chief operating officer (COO), upstream, noted that as at 2006 Nigeria was flaring 2.5 billion standard cubic feet (scf) of gas, while consuming only 300mscf of gas per day.
Rabiu added that technology had helped the country’s oil and gas industry to record “a drastic flare down.”
He said the drastic reduction in gas flaring was achieved through aggressive gas commercialization, anchored on the nation’s gas master plan.
“The gas master plan was geared towards addressing four key critical issues of gas availability, infrastructure, commercialization framework and gas affordability,” Rabiu explained.
He further stated that though the implementation of the plan was driven by NNPC, it was sponsored by all the oil and gas companies operating in the country, and that it has helped in addressing some of the challenges that were confronting the gas sector.
The COO Upstream stated that in order to ensure gas affordability, the plan stipulates a lower price for gas to the power sector, which is the most important segment, leaving other industrial sectors and manufacturing to get gas at commercial rates.
This measure, according to him, was to ensure that gas producers get value for the gas they produce for sale.
On other actions by the Federal Government to end gas flaring in the country, Rabiu said government had designed a national gas policy which seeks, among other things, to end gas flaring by 2020.
He explained that the national gas policy had been circulated to all operators to guide them on the position of the Federal Government with regard to how it wants the nation’s abundant gas resources to be deployed.
He said the policy document was being studied by all stakeholders in order to put them on the same page with the government.
The COO also informed that, three weeks ago, the Federal Government provided a guarantee of payment to gas suppliers through the Central Bank of Nigeria and the World Bank as part of incentives to get the oil and gas companies to commercialize more of their gas.
“This is a very important step that the NNPC has been working on since 2008”, he noted.
On appropriate gas pricing, Rabiu said that the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria has been established by all the gas producing companies in Nigeria to work towards achieving parity between domestic and export gas prices.
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