NNPC Assures of 2020 Gas Flaring Deadline

BY COBHAM NSA, ABUJA – If assurances from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) are anything to go by, then the years of official mouthing about gas flaring stoppage in Nigeria will soon be over.
The country’s oil giant is confident that the 2020 deadline to end gas flaring will be achieved and steps towards its attainment are being pursued vigorously.
According to the Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Upstream, Bello Rabiu, the NNPC has already reduced gas flaring in the country by 26 per cent in the last ten years, adding that the development has positively changed Nigeria’s position as second highest gas flaring nation to the seventh position.
Rabiu, who said from 36 per cent in 2006, the figure dropped to 10 per cent in 2016, further explained that Nigeria was flaring 2.5 billion standard cubic feet (scf) of gas as at 2006, while consuming only 300m scf of gas per day.
He said the modern technology drive has helped the industry to record a radical flare down with the National Gas Policy (NGP) standing out among the various measures taken by the Federal Government to put an end to gas flaring in the country by 2020.
Explaining that the extensive reduction in gas flaring came through vigorous gas commercialization anchored on the Gas Master Plan, Rabiu said, “The Gas Master Plan was geared towards addressing four key critical issues of gas availability, infrastructure, commercialization framework and gas affordability,”
He said for gas affordability, the plan specifies low pricing for gas to the power sector as the most important segment with the manufacturing and industry sectors to be serviced at a commercial rate.
The COO said the stipulated arrangement would serve as an incentive for gas producers to derive value for their product, even as he hinted that the NNPC would drive the implementation of the plan sponsored by all the operating oil and gas companies in the country.