NIGERIA’S gas flares have caused the country to lose over $850 million and an estimated $400 million carbon credit value emission. Department of Petroleum Resources’ Deputy Director, Upstream, Pat Maseli gave the statistics at the 10th Annual Sub-Saharan Africa Oil and Gas Conference in the US, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported.
According to NAN, the statistics relate to gas flaring in 2015 which has led to a loss of 3,500MW of electricity generation
‘Fifty-five million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) was lost and 25 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted. The country is recording decline, but the scale of gas flaring is still worrisome.’
Maseli said that with almost 8 billion cubic meters of gas flared annually, according to satellite data, Nigeria is the seventh largest gas flaring country in the world, media reported.
‘At the same time, approximately 75 million Nigerians lack access to electricity. In recent years, Nigeria has shown significant progress by reducing gas flaring by about 2 billion cubic metres from 2012 to 2015,’ Maseli stated.
Maseli said that until recently, there were no gas terms in place, however the department had recently developed policies on gas terms and utilisation.
‘This was passed to operators for their input which will subsequently be sent to the National Assembly for its passage.
‘The Gas Master Plan seeks to deliver gas to commercial sub sector for use as fuel, captive power and related end-use, to consolidate Nigeria’s position and market share in high value export markets.’
Maseli added: ‘It will create regional hub for gas-based industries, including fertiliser, petrochemical and methanol. It will also transform the gas sector to a value-adding sector.’
On the breakdown of the 2008-2013 Domestic Gas Supply Obligation (DGSO), Maseli said the compliance was about 23 percent.
In 2016, the DGSO was achieved at 38.18 percent, while in 2017, it was 40 percent, she stated.