We Are Shifting Focus On Gas Utilisation To Drive Investments, Economic Growth-FG

The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment to deepen natural gas utilization to enable it boost investment in power and gas-based industries.

Speaking at the Decade of Gas Pre-summit Conference in Abuja on Monday, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, noted that the government has committed huge resources to ensure that domestic gas infrastructure reach every corner of the country to deepen natural gas utilization.

Nigeria, has over 203 trillion standard cubic feet of proven gas reserves which the government aims to monetize with the introduction of numerous policies and industry interventions since 2016.

This culminated in the declaration of 2020 as the year of gas and progressing into the decade of gas from 2021.

Kyari stated that NNPC and its partners have embarked on a number of strategic projects to deepen delivery of gas to the domestic market and elevate the build-up of greater potentials for export.

He said, “The completion of the Escravos-Lagos Pipeline System Phase 2, commissioning of the Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben Lot 2, the NPDC Oredo Gas Handling Facility, and the SEEPCO Gas Processing Plant can be easily cited, even without mentioning ongoing strategic backbone gas infrastructure projects such as the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline, the OB3 final hook-up, the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline and several other gas-based industries initiatives.

“All these will herald the sunrise of gas revolution in our country within the decade.”

He noted that as part of the journey to make the Decade of Gas a reality, the Federal Government has also rolled out the Autogas initiative to provide alternative cleaner and cheaper transportation fuel to petrol, adding that the initiative has received huge support from the entire energy industry and gained tremendous traction.

Speaking further, Kyari affirmed Nigeria’s preparedness to play a strategic role in the new global energy order.

According to him, technology and innovation is expected to facilitate a new global energy order aimed at de-carbonizing the world and safeguarding the climate.

He said, “Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind which would be key components of the new energy mix were largely influenced by seasons and were non-transportable to demand centres where they are in short supply.

“Under the circumstances, natural gas, and by extension blue hydrogen, would be heavily depended upon as transition fuels to play a key role in the clean energy drive and would provide significant proportion of the global energy mix as well as guarantee feedstock to gas-based industries.”

President Muhammadu Buhari who launched “The Decade of Gas in Nigeria” said that the rising global demand for cleaner energy sources has offered Nigeria an opportunity to exploit gas resources for the good of the country.

The President noted that while his administration has prioritized gas development and recorded remarkable progress, it is well known that Nigeria is a gas nation with a little oil. However, he lamented that the country has focused on oil over the years.

He said, “Before the declaration of Year 2020 as the year of gas, this Administration had shown commitment to the development of Nigeria’s vast gas resources and strengthening of the gas value chain by reviewing and gazetting policies and regulations to enhance operations in the sector as encapsulated in the National Gas Policy of 2017.

‘‘Our major objective for the gas sector is to transform Nigeria into an industrialized nation with gas playing a major role and we demonstrated this through enhanced accelerated gas revolution.”