Why Nigeria Cannot End Gas Flaring in 2020

Nigeria is one of the world's top gas flaring nations and the Federal Government has severally promised to harness and market the nation's gas resources to reduce the negative impact gas flare has on oil-producing communities over the years without success.

SEATTLE (Oil Monster):  Experts have cautioned against undue optimism over the three-point strategy unfolded by the Federal Government to end gas flare by 2020, insisting that elusive strategies and other inherent challenges, would ensure that the desire remains a pipe dream.

To further illustrate their pessimism, they say there is no way the strategy would be achieved, considering lax legislative backing and weak regulatory framework, as well as, low incentives.

Nigeria is one of the world's top gas flaring nations and the Federal Government has severally promised to harness and market the nation's gas resources to reduce the negative impact gas flare has on oil-producing communities over the years without success.

But the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, who last Thursday announced a three-point strategy to contain the menace in 2020.

According to experts who queried government's optimism, even if the challenges were addressed, setting a two-year deadline was a mere political statement and should not have come from a personality who understands how the industry and Nigeria's political landscape operate.

The strategies announced by Baru, include, non-submission of Field Development Plans (FDPs) to the industry regulator, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), without a viable and executable gas utilisation plan; steady reduction of existing flares through a combination of targeted policy interventions in the Gas Master-plan, as well as, re-invigoration of the flare penalty through the 2016 Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP), and through legislation, that is, place ban on gas flaring via the recent Flare Gas (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations 2018.

Though the NNPC is key to ending gas flare in the country, considering that the gas being flared basically comes from joint venture activities, which the NNPC holds in trust for the state, President of Nigerian Association for Energy Economics (NAEE), Prof. Wumi Iledare, said incentives and legislative backing as well as infrastructure for ending gas flaring are currently unavailable.

 Courtesy: www.allafrica.com