It appears that Government’s intervention in the gas sector is paying off, as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, says gas flaring in Nigeria has reduced from 25% to 11%.
The NNPC Group Managing Director, Mr Andrew Yakubu, announced this at a conference organized by the Senate Committee on Gas in Abuja.
The World Bank had listed Nigeria as Africa’s biggest in terms of gas flaring, while a report published by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, also ranked Nigeria as the second highest gas flaring nation in the world.
The Federal Government has, meanwhile, been setting and shifting deadlines to end gas flaring for years, but despite the expiration of several deadlines, the most recent being the December 31, 2013 deadline, gas flaring still continued in Nigeria.
The NNPC Group Managing Director, however, said that some progress has been made in reducing gas flaring in the country, as many international oil companies are fast approaching full flare out in the country.
Mr Yakubu said that in the past three years, the Federal Government had begun an aggressive implementation of a nationwide gas infrastructure blueprint with the Government’s intervention beginning to generate a change in the direction of gas in Nigeria.
But while some progress is being made in improving gas infrastructure, the utilization of domestic gas in Nigeria still remains a major issue, and this is according to the Chairman Senate Committee on Gas,Senator Nkechi Nwaogu.
Senator Nwaogu said that an increased use of cooking gas would not only lead to huge savings in billions of dollars on subsidy but would also help cut down greenhouse gas emissions which contribute greatly to global warming.
