Nigeria needs to effectively harness gas resources for energy transition, security — society

The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Nigeria Council says in view of energy transition, Nigeria needs to effectively harness potential of gas resources to ensure energy security. Mr Felix Obike, the Chairman, SPE, Nigeria Council said this on Sunday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. Obike underscored the need to deepen programmes and projects on gas utilisation and policy implementation in realisation of the net zero carbon emission. The SPE chairman said its just concluded 2023 Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum (OLEF) was geared toward policies formulations and implementation to ensure delivering effective and sustainable energy in the country.

NAN reports that OLEF is an annual event of SPE to commemorate first discovery of oil by Shell in commercial quantities in Oloibiri, Bayelsa in 1956. The 2023 edition of OLEF had as its theme: “Effective Gas Resources Utilisation: A Lever for Enhancing Energy Security and Achieving Net-Zero Emission Goals in Nigeria”.

Gas, which Nigeria has reserves of more than 200 trillion cubic feet, is a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than oil or coal, and can play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking on acceptance of gas as a transition fuel and move to achieve net zero emission, he said Nigeria, as a gas country had readily available gas resources to exploit and guarantee energy security. He said apart from investments, funding, infrastructure and technologies coming to play in energy transitions, capacity building was also paramount to harness gas potential. He said capacity building was also being spearheaded by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) in the tertiary institutions by ensuring development of professionals to project this development. This, he said was being done by encouragement and inclusive of gas generation and technology courses among others in tertiary institutions curriculum and sponsoring them.

He said in as much as we are trying to decarbonise, we still need to develop our reserves to harness opportunities in oil and gas industry which was the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. “Gas as a cleaner energy for energy transition will be effective for Nigeria looking at its affordability, sustainability and energy security. We are now trying to harness these resources, having modular approaches by different companies of developing gas reserves, producing them in a safe manner to reduce emission through technological applications,” he said.