Kunle Kalejaye
31 August 2016, Sweetcrude, Lagos – The Federal Government is set to launch a Petroleum Road-Map designed in the form of policies that will cushion Nigeria’s current economic crisis.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, revealed this in Lagos, saying the road-map will come out in three policies which include the roadmap itself, a gas policy and petroleum policy, all aimed at driving positive changes in the petroleum industry.
“At this point in Nigeria’s economy, we need to come out with polices that will drive positive changes especially in the petroleum industry. There has to be a policy to bring about gas revolution. That is why we are going to be launching three policies – the gas policy, the petroleum policy and the petroleum road-map. It would be unveiled next week (last week),” he said.
The launching did not hold last week as announced by minister, but a Ministry of Petroleum Resources source, who did not explain why the event did not hold, was optimistic this would happen soon.
Speaking on gas flaring, Kachikwu said Nigeria has to transit from a gas flaring regime to flare commercialisation. “Instead of always paying penalty for gas flaring, there is an urgent need to turn flared gases into money,” he said.
The move to stop gas flaring could not have come at a more critical time when Nigeria is seeing its worst power outages due to oil and gas pipeline vandalism by militants in the Niger Delta.
Flared gas is being used by power plants in the country, albeit minimally, due to the same issue of pipeline vandalism by militants, which has seen national power generation drop below 3,000 megawatts.
