By Aminah Carew
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will deliver an additional 5,000 megawatts of electricity to the national power grid once the ongoing gas projects throughout the country are completed.
NNPC Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari, who spoke during a virtual event organised by the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA), themed: “Powering Forward: Enabling Nigeria’s Industrialisation Via Gas,” said the NNPC was committed to fulfilling President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to boost domestic gas supply.
Represented by the Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, Mr. Yusuf Usman, Kyari stated that progress was being made on several of the projects, including the NLNG Train 7, with a foreign direct investment of between $3 billion and $5 billion.
He listed others as the AKK, which he described as one the largest and most aggressive gas infrastructure that has ever been embarked upon in Nigeria, stretching 614 km from Ajaokuta, Abuja, Kaduna and Kano, and Lot B of the OB3 gas project, which is already producing 125 mmscfd of gas.
Kyari stated that by the end of this quarter, the project would “cross the River Niger”, which will successfully create a highway to move the huge gas resources in the eastern area to the west.
He said the NNPC was looking to establish two gas hubs, one at Oben and the other at Brass, adding that one of the presidential mandates is to deliver on gas and power and create a market in the domestic environment that will consume the planned 4.5bcf of gas.
According to him, for the first time, the corporation, in collaboration with its partners, are able to raise about $260m within Nigerian merchant banks and two African banks for the Asa north gas project.
He said: “Something we need to emphasise in terms of gas utilisation in Nigeria is the power sector. All our projections have shown that 60 to 70 per cent of this gas that we hope to sell off the 4.5 bcf will come from power.
“At the moment, the power sector is challenged and all efforts have to be put in to unlock the liquidity in the downstream sector and expand the transmission network. This will enable us to sell the gas we have already invested in and enhance the economic prosperity of the country.
“Within the NNPC, we are looking to establish about five gigawatts of additional power into the network. So, NNPC is engaging with the stakeholders to resolve the power sector issue so that investment that has been made in generating gas can be realised.”
Kyari also stated that the NNPC had begun to create a link between the domestic gas pipelines infrastructure and export gas pipelines to create an outlet into the export route which will make the projects more bankable.
In his remarks, the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, highlighted the need to have a cleaner, more liveable environment, noting that he is planning well for the state’s huge population, guaranteeing green jobs, reducing carbon emissions and working towards a healthy environment.
He said there was the need to boost domestic utilisation of gas, adding that Lagos set up the Ibile Oil and Gas, privately driven, to transition the state to a low carbon economy by taking out firewood, kerosene and all the dirty fuels.
He stated that the company was about completing five metric tonnes of gas facility, which will be increased over time, while deliberately promoting autogas for transportation.
Sanwo-Olu stated that the about 1,000 buses currently owned by Lagos Government will be converted to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Managing Director of the Nigeria LNG, Mr Tony Attah, in his remarks, said more than half of Africa had no access to energy and that Nigeria was high on the table of states with energy poverty.
He added that despite the energy transition currently taking place, Nigeria is still very dependent on oil.
“We have an absolute conviction that we have more gas than oil. Our biggest opportunity as a nation is in gas. On the equivalence basis, we have more gas than oil. The world is not waiting for us. The world is moving on,” he said.
Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Osagie Okubor, stated that the issue of gas development as a catalyst for industrialisation is not the articulation of what needs to be done, but the execution.
He said although progress had been made over the years, the challenge was to find a way to balance competing needs