26 June 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – Nigeria’s oil industry regulator, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), says the volume of natural gas reserves in the country might be as much as 600 trillion cubic feet.
“Nigeria’s gas reserves endowment may be up to 600 trillion cubic feet (tcf), which is the reason the country is often described as a gas province with little oil,” DPR Director, Mr. Osten Olorunsola, told members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives Committee on Gas, who paid him a courtesy call in his office in Lagos.
The DPR boss said alll the gas discoveries in Nigeria till date were made in the process of exploring for crude oil and that there has not been any deliberate effort at exploring for gas despite the huge gas.
According to him, Nigeria ranks 8th in the world and number one in Africa on gas reserves, stressing that “all natural gas discoveries are incidental to exploration for crude oil.
He tated that with the high proportion of natural gas accumulation is concentrated in the Niger Delta; and substantial discoveries have been made in the deep offshore area adding that exploration efforts in the Benue Trough, Chad Basin and Anambra Basin show that the inland basins have potential to add to national gas resource volumes.
He told the committee that the DPR is not relenting in its efforts to creating as much revenues from gas as oil as well as address environmental issues and end gas flaring.
The agency, Olorunsola noted is working with the operator companies and other stakeholders to develop domestic market and create new industries out of the old oil industry. “Similar to oil, the sector aspires to grow the gas resource base aggressively to catalyze growth of the wider national economy,” he added.
