President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) has generated $114 billion (about N43.3 trillion) in revenues over the years, $9bn in taxes, $18bn in dividends to the federal government and $15bn in Feed Gas Purchase.
The president stated this Monday at the virtual Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) 2021 Pre-Summit Conference and official launch of the Decade of Gas.
He said these achievements by NLNG, which contributes about one percent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP), were accomplished with 100 per cent Nigerian management and 95 per cent Nigerian workforce.
Buhari promised that his administration would fully utilize the enormous gas resources in the country to uplift the economy and drive industrialization.
He charged all other relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on the need to partner with the international oil companies, the indigenous oil companies and financial institutions to actualize the dream of fully utilizing our gas resources to uplift our economy.
He said given the country’s potential of about 600tr standard cubic feet (scf) of gas, the commodity has the enormous potential to diversify the Nigerian economy.
‘‘The rising global demand for cleaner energy sources has offered Nigeria an opportunity to exploit gas resources for the good of the country. We intend to seize this opportunity,” he said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Femi Adesina.
At the event, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, affirmed Nigeria’s preparedness to play a strategic role in the new global energy order.
Kyari in his welcome address, said natural gas, and by extension blue hydrogen, would be heavily depended upon as transition fuels for a new global energy order especially with renewables.
According to him, Nigeria as a gas nation with over 203tr scf of proven gas reserves is monetizing the huge gas resources spurred by numerous policy and industry interventions since 2016, culminating in the declaration of 2020 as the year of gas and progressing into the decade of gas from 2021.
He highlighted the various projects to promote gas, including, the Escravos-Lagos Pipeline System Phase 2 (ELPS II), the Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben (OB3) Lot 2, the NPDC Oredo Gas Handling Facility, and the SEEPCO Gas Processing Plant.
Ongoing projects include the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline, the OB3 final hook-up, the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline, among others.
To also make the Decade of Gas a reality, he said the federal government has also rolled out the Autogas initiative to provide alternative cleaner and cheaper transportation fuel to petrol.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director/CEO of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Mr Tony Attah, during a panel session at the event, said the Train 7 gas facility that it is currently developing will provide about 12,000 jobs at the peak of construction.
He said: “You can change the narrative in Nigeria if you can knock off either unemployment or poverty.
NLNG is tackling that narrative through provision of jobs on the back of Train 7.
“Train 7 is no longer ambitious. The way to enable Train 7, 8, 9 and 10 is to actually do a lot in the upstream by accelerating development of gas and moving Nigeria from 9th to 4th position in the ranks of gas-producing countries,” Attah noted.
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