Nigeria’s gas reserves have climbed to 200.79 trillion standard cubic feet (Tscf) from the 197 Tscf in the two years.
A document from the oil and gas industry regulator, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) sighted at the weekend showed that the 200.79Tscf was the proven reserves of Nigeria’s natural gas as at January 2019 with potential to rise to 600Tscf.
The document was underscoring the importance of attracting and providing incentives to investors to unlock these reserves and proceeds from the resource used to develop other sectors of the economy as well as grow industrialisation through domestic gas utilisation.
Despite having reserves in excess of 200Tscf, the country’s gas production still remains at 8.06 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bscfd) with only 17 per cent of production utilised in-country while the remaining is exported, re-injected and flared.
Gas re-injection policy was adopted to prevent flaring of gas from deepwater fields because the infrastructure that will take such gas are lacking, hence the need to support the establishment of more liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants and expansion of the Nigeria LNG Limited.
According to the document, a breakdown of how the 8.06Bscfd of natural gas produced in Nigeria is used is as follows: 41 per cent for the export market, such as the one bought and exported by the NLNG Limited and the one sold to West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAGPCo), 17 per cent to the domestic market for use by thermal power plants for electricity generation, 31 per cent used for oil field operations, including gas re-injection and the remaining 11 per cnet flared.
The report said: “Nigeria has abundant gas resources which currently stand at 200.79Tscf as at January 1, 2019. Nigeria’s gas resources has the potential to catalyse industrial growth and development in addition to its role as a key revenue earner to the government.
“But prior to this time, lack of adequate physical, legislative and commercial structures for gas has militated against the development of the sector since the commencement of oil and gas production in 1958. However, government is deliberate in the formulation and implementation of gas-centric policies and programmes.
“This deliberate action to utilise and monetise gas led to the formulation of the National Gas Policy (NGP), which was approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2017 aimed at ensuring the development of the gas sector to drive gas-based industrialisation in Nigeria.
“Arising from the above, the DPR being a government department that drives the implementation of government policies and programmes in the oil and gas sector, is pursing the following focus areas to drive growth of the sector – reserves growth, domestic gas supply, high value gas export and gas flares-out.’’
“The DPR is at the forefront of driving the implementation of three key government programmes for sectoral development. The three programmes are the Nigerian Gas Transportation Network Code (NGTNC), Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP) and the Domestic Liquefied Petroleum Gas Penetration.”
