Ike Amos
15 August 2018, Sweetcrude, Abuja — Nigeria lost $80.64 million, an equivalent of N24.99 billion in March this year, as oil and gas companies operating in the country flared 26.88 billion standard cubic feet, SCF, of natural gas in the process of oil production.
The amount lost to gas flaring in the month represented a decline of 1.38 percent compared to the $81.75 million (N25.34 billion) lost to the flaring of 27.25 billion SCF in February. Also, the volume of gas flared in March represented 10.55 percent of the total volume of 254.68 billion SCF of gas produced by the oil companies in the month under review.
According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, monthly financial and operations report for the month under review, out of the 254.68 billion SCF of gas produced in the period, 40.52 billion SCF was utilised domestically; 112.08 billion SCF was exported, while 102.07 billion was not commercialised.
In the domestic gas utilisation segment, 26.49 SCF was supplied to the power sector and 14.03 billion SCF taken up by industries. In the export segment, 2.35 billion SCF was exported through the West African Gas Pipeline and 6.51 billion SCF exported through the Escravos Gas to Liquid project.
Also, 2.88 billion SCF was exported as natural gas liquids/liquefied petroleum gas while the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, exported 100.34 billion SCF of the commodity in the period under review.
In the non-commercialised gas segment, 64.24 billion SCF was re-injected; 10.95 billion SCF was used as fuel gas, while 26.88 billion SCF was flared.
The report said: “This translates to a total supply of 1.307 billion SCF per day of gas to the domestic market and 3.62 billion SCF per day of gas supplied to the export market for the month.
“This implies that 59.92 percent of the average daily gas produced was commercialised while the balance of 40.08 percent was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared. Gas flare rate was 10.55 percent for the month of March 2018, that is 867.10 million SCF per day, compared with average gas flare rate of 10.24 percent, which is 804.14 million SCF per day for the period March 2017 to March 2018.”
The report further noted that total gas supply for the period March 2017 to March 2018 stood at 3.1156 trillion SCF, out of which 454.83 billion SCF and 1.364 trillion SCF were commercialised for the domestic and export market respectively, while gas –injected, fuel gas and gas flared stood at 1.297 trillion SCF.
