Ike Amos
11 July 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Nigerian Government has made it a grievous offence for oil and gas companies to present false gas flare data to regulatory authorities in the industry.
This was contained in the National Gas Policy, approved by the Federal Executive Council.
According to the policy document, it would be an offence for false data regarding gas flaring to be provided.
It added that a steep tier of fines would be meted out to any company found providing false data to any Federal Government agency relating to flares.
In addition, the document stated that the current gas flare penalty of N10 per 1,000 standard cubic feet of associated gas flared was too low.
According to the document, the penalty had been eroded in value over time, and was not acting as intended, as a disincentive.
“Consequently, the low penalty has made gas flaring a much cheaper option for operators compared to the alternatives of marketing or re-injection,” it noted.
It added that the intention of Government was to increase the gas flaring penalty to an appropriate level sufficient to de-incentivise the practice of gas flaring whilst introducing other measures to encourage efficient gas utilisation.
It stated that the commercialisation of flared gas for supply into the domestic market is a high priority strategy for the Government in achieving the national mandate for flare-out by 2020.
Furthermore, the document explained that to support the goal of improving the development of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) infrastructure and due to the shortage of local cylinder manufacturing capacity, the National Gas Policy would promote the phased injection of 20 million cylinders over a period of five years.
