14 January 2014, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Oil and gas industry experts who gathered recently in Lagos were firm in their call on the Federal Government to do more to end gas flaring in the country.
They said the 1.79 billion dollars (about N289.60 billion) lost annually to gas flaring was too enormous to be ignored.
The Director, Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr George Osahon, had in December 2014 revealed that Federal Government loses about N289.6 billion annually to gas flaring.
Osahon said at the 14th Annual General Meeting and Business Forum of the Nigerian Gas Association that the figure came from the 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas flared by multinationals on daily basis.
He stated that the 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas flared per day cost the country 4.9 million dollars (about N110 million) at $3.50/1,000 standard cubic feet daily.
Seyi Gambo, former Public Relations Officer of PENGASSAN, said that there was need for government to enforce the terminal date on gas flaring and convert the flared gas to improving the level of power supply.
Gambo said that an articulated deadline was what the country needed and penalties set aside for defaulters.
Simon Philips, an environmentalist at the University of Port Harcourt, stated that there had been several terminal dates to end gas flaring which had failed, urging the oil multinationals and environmentalists to design a blue print that would put an end to gas flaring this year.
Dada Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, Frontier Oil Limited, Lagos urged the Federal Government to harness the potential of the nation’s enormous gas reserves by encouraging investments in domestic gas projects. Thomas said this was critical to fuel the nation’s power sector reforms and other critical sectors of the economy.
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