The country will by 2014 reduce gas flaring during oil production to two per cent, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has said.
Speaking at the Nigeria Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Tuesday, the minister said the country had succeeded in reducing gas flaring to less than 11 per cent compared to 30 per cent in 2010.
This, she added, was still not adequate, and had prompted the two per cent target for next year in line with international best practice.
According to her, the oil and gas industry has played a critical role in improving the country’s economy, and the Federal Government remained committed to transforming the sector towards achieving international best standards.
For the upstream sub-sector, Alison-Madueke said her ministry had, over the last 12 months, maintained a production of 2.4 million barrels per day, as well as increased gas production from 6.3 billion standard cubic feet per day to 7.8bscf/d.
She said the initiative to grow the national oil company, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, to medium-sized oil and gas company over the last couple of years had been done in an aggressive manner.
The minister said, “It has been very trying and difficult to put in place that which we have put in place.
“Despite this, we were being accused of selling our oil blocks. What I did was to sign the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation equity over to NPDC. I think it is worth it if the government is not prepared to stand up and put their money where their mouth is.
“We need to ensure that certain national assets and entities are supported with full government will behind it. Without that, we will not move forward.”
By supporting the national oil company in the last two years, Alison-Madueke said the country had managed to increase oil production from 50,000 barrels per day to 140,000bpd in 2012.
This, she explained, meant that production would increase over the next two years.
The minister said the ministry had reposition the NPDC to be a dominant gas supplier to the domestic market, as it was currently supplying over 400mscf in the western Niger Delta.
“We have also completed 65,000mscf in the Oredo gas handling facility, which was commissioned recently. Our plan is to continue throughout this year to further increase power generation by additional 40 per cent through additional 450mscf per day of gas supply,” she said.
Alison-Madueke said the funding of the development of the country’s gas infrastructure initiative had been through appropriation, which was not sustainable.
She said the ministries of Petroleum Resources and Finance were currently collaborating to use euro bond to finance the country’s huge gas investment.
On the downstream sub-sector, the minister said there had been an improvement, which had raised the annual average from 18 per cent to 30 per cent, while capacity utilisation had also increased from an epileptic situation to a more stable situation of between 50 and 58 per cent.
She said, “The impact of all these had been an increase in the contribution of the refineries to the supply of products. The refineries now supply about 21 million litres daily from about 12 million litres.
“I think we are expecting that we will gradually reduce importation as the turn around maintenance comes into play, as well as when the rehabilitation of the refineries begins.”