By Bisola Adeyemo
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), is set to draw out a strategy to address and tackle the challenges of gas flaring in the country.
The NNPC Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (GMD/CEO), Malam Mele Kyari, during a panel session at the just concluded Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES 2022) in Abuja, said part of the strategies would be to ensure that any proposed project without clear-cut plans to commercialize or use up its associated gas would no longer be approved, according to in a company.
He said gas utilisation was a major priority of both the Federal Government and NNPC as efforts were on to build infrastructure to replace the current fuel oil and diesel in the nation’s factories with gas which is a cleaner source of energy.
Kyari remarked that the trend was in tandem with the global reality of energy transition.
He, however, stressed that Nigeria as a country needed all the hydrocarbon of today to build the energy of tomorrow.
In his keynote message, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources was ready to provide the needed framework and support for seamless energy transition in the country.
Also speaking at the event, a former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, said focusing on fast-tracking oil production, in-country refining, developing funding stream and leveraging the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) were some of the solutions to the industry’s current challenges.
He advised that gas should be seen as transition fuel with estimated life span of 20 years, adding that industry players should begin to look at alternative sources of energy such as solar and wind to catch up with the world before 2060.