FG to reduce gas flaring to 2 per cent in 2014

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, on Tuesday said government would reduce gas flaring from 11 per cent to two per cent in 2014. The minister said this at the ongoing 13th Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja. She said that currently, the ministry had reduced gas flaring to less than 11 per cent as against 30 per cent in 2010 which she said was still not adequate.
“This year conference gives us great opportunity to discuss and address the oil and gas business, challenges and government’s plan to the sector in the next five years. The ministry of petroleum had played a critical role in transforming the oil and gas sector which has been the primary objective of the ministry. The oil and gas sector had witnessed tremendous renewal performance level in the last three years ago under the leadership of President Good luck Jonathan, which has placed the industry in better development.
Alison-Madueke said that in the upstream sector, the ministry had continued over the last 12 months to maintain its production of 2.4 million barrel per day. She said that gas production in the country had also increased from 6.3 billon Standard Cubic Feet per day (SCF) to 7.8 billion SCF per day in 2012. “The initiative to grow the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) to medium seizes of Oil and Gas Company over the last couples of years had been done in an aggressive manner. It has been very difficult to put in place, but we have put in place a robust and aggressive issue in trying to support the national oil company in the way and manner we did,’’ she added.
The minister said that in spite of being accused of selling the country oil blocks, it had signed NNPC equity over to NPDC. “I think that it’s worth it, if government is not prepared to stand up and put their money where their mouth is, to ensure that certain national assets and entities are supported with full government behind it, we will not move forward. By supporting the NPDC company in the last two year, we have manage to increase the company production from 50,000 barrel per day that we met to 140,000 barrel per day in 2012,’’ she said. The minister said that the effect meant that it would increase over the next two years. Alison-Madueke said that funding of gas infrastructures initiative had to be through appropriation “which is not sustainable.’’