The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation says it will grow domestic gas utilisation in-country to five billion cubic feet of gas per day from its current 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2022.

Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, NNPC, Yusuf Usman, said this in a statement from the oil firm on Thursday.

He explained that domestic gas demand was expected to grow to 7.4b illion cubic feet of gas per day by 2027.

“Based on all current known domestic gas supply projects, domestic gas supply is forecast to close the demand by 2021 as we have identified seven critical gas development projects currently being fast tracked to bridge the foreseen supply gap by 2021,” he said.

Usman stated that the completion of the three major domestic gas transmission systems would add 6.8 billion cubic feet of gas per day capacity.

He said the 36- inch Escravos to Lagos Pipelines 1 and 2 with 2.2 billion cubic feet per day capacity would be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

He said the ongoing East to West connection via the 48-inch Obiafu Obrikom to Oben pipeline with 2.4 billion cubic feet per day capacity would be completed in the first quarter of 2020.