Revenue estimated at N127.53 billion was lost to flared gas by the Nigerian Government in the 11 months to November 2019.
In quantity terms, this value equals 225.81 billion standard cubic feet (scf) of natural gas, figure gleaned from the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) showed.
Gas flaring has become a big logjam to Africa’s largest economy with the passage of time, costing the country a revenue loss in the neighbourhood of N233 billion (US$761.6 million) in 2018 according to PricewaterhouseCoopers as government sources to broaden its fiscal basket.
However, the 2019 volume of flared gas reflects a 13.2% decline when set beside the 2018 reported figure, standing at 260.19 billion scf.
In January 2019, local and foreign oil companies flared 18.30 billion scf while the figure for February 2019 was 21.22 scf.
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The firms flared 24.95 billion scf last March, 24.95 billion scf in April and 19.84 billion scf in May.
They flared 18.12 billion scf, 20.47 billion scf, 21.66 billion scf and 19.94 billion scf in June, July, August and September respectively.
The figure for October was 17.52 billion scf while that of November was 18.97 billion scf.
Natural gas sells for $1.84 per 1,000 scf, meaning that the 225.81 billion scf of gas flared between January and November 2019 amounts to $415.49m (N127.53 billion).
In an effort to curb gas flaring and turn waste to fortune, government nine days ago shortlisted 200 firms out of the 800 proposing to commercialise the practice.
The first phase of its Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP) is hoped to apportion 45 of Nigeria’s 178 gas flare sites to firms that scale the bidding hurdle.
Ronald Adamolekun
