THE Group General Manager (GMD) of the Nigerian Nationa Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, on Monday, said about $51 billion investment opportunity still exists in gas processing and transmission and general infrastructure development in Nigeria.
Dr. Baru also added that plan was in place to close the shortfall in demand of about 4.7 Bcfd by 2020 through the development of the 7-big bang projects which would deliver about 3.4 Bcfd in the short to medium term and 7 Bcfd in the long term.
Delivering his speech, tagged: “New Growth Phase for Gas Business in Nigeria” at the Nigerian Gas Association 10th International Conference and Exhibition in Abuja, the GMD said about $35.4 billion investment opportunity could be derived through gas exploration and production, power plants, fertilizer plants, as well as virtual pipeline and flare gas commercialisation.
He stressed further that $16 billion investment opportunity still exists in pipeline milling and fabrication yards, FTZ infrastructure development and concession, port infrastructure, central processing facilities, gas transmission pipelines, as well as LPG plants and real estate development.
The GMD said the pragmatic road map to grow power generation capacity by at least 3-folds within the next four years has been designed, and strategic aspiration was to convert P3 reserve to 2P commercial category and also initiate deliberate exploration for the 600 TCF undiscovered gas resources.
In his ministerial address, tagged “Our Nigeria Gas Vision, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu said in order to ensure robustness in gas supply over the long term, the some initiatives would be pursued, which include Gas terms for PSCs and this would be produced before the end of 2016.
Others, according to him, include exploration and development of new gas supply sources from inland and offshore basins would be actively encouraged, while a national gas flare commercialization programme would commence in the first quarter of 2017.
“For LPG, which is a critical means of our development, it represents a window of opportunity to create jobs and bring improvement in the quality of life of the populace. The policy for LPG in Nigeria is to ensure the development. The overall goal of this policy is to promote wider use in domestic, power generation, auto gas and industrial applications. We have set ourselves the goal of attaining five million tonnes in utilization in the next five years.
“We are, therefore, going to be providing incentives for local consumers through free gas cylinders and all that, to enable them sort of ramp up the levels of their consumption.
Gas flaring is still the prevailing practice in the petroleum industry. The view of the government is that the protection of the environment is a more important objective than oil and gas production. Hence, government is determined to ensure flare-out within the earliest possible time. I know the oil companies have made substantial progress on this, but we are going to be seeking very aggressively for more.
We are seeking to exit gas flaring by 2020”, he explained.
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