Oil & Gas
By Anayo Ezugwu
Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, has reduced gas flaring into the country to less than 20 percent. Sadeeq Mai-Bornu, deputy managing director, Nigeria LNG Limited, says that the company has converted about 6.8Tcf of associated gas to Liquefied Natural Gas and Natural Gas Liquids, thus contributing to the reduction of gas flaring by upstream companies from over 60 percent before it commenced operations to less than 20 percent currently.
Speaking at the 2020 NLNG/BusinessDay Conference on Gas, on Tuesday, September 29, Mai-Bornu disclosed that the company has set up a conservation area, the Finima Nature Park in Bonny Island, an area of about 1,000 hectares that acts as a carbon sink in pursuit for a cleaner environment. He said the park was underpinned by the company’s strong focus on safety goal zero, which demands zero harm to people, zero harm to the environment and zero harm to her facilities.
Mai-Bornu, who was represented by Eyono Fatayi-Williams, general manager, external relations and sustainable development, NLNG, said the company was committed to the vision of helping to build a better Nigeria. “In 2007, in continuous demonstration of our commitment to the vision of “helping to build a better Nigeria”, NLNG intervened in the domestic LPG market and today we are committed to delivering 350,000 metric tonnes of LPG annually to the domestic market to ensure the availability, reliability and affordability of the commodity in the country.
“This intervention is NLNG’s contribution towards the conservation of the environment and the elimination of health challenges attributed to smoke inhalation from cooking with hazardous fuels, which adversely impacts the health of mostly women and children. This way, we are contributing to a healthier society. As one of the most successful companies in Nigeria, NLNG is a major revenue earner for the nation. Over 70 percent of NLNG’s profit goes to Nigeria, via NNPC through dividends, and Company Income Tax. Other taxes that NLNG pays include VAT and Education Tax. NNPC also gets 55-60 percent of the feed gas purchase revenue through its participating interest in the upstream JVs.
“Our Train 7 expansion project, when completed and operational, will add about 35% capacity to our extant 22mtpa plant which should continue to place Nigeria as a gas nation and NLNG as a major supplier of LNG globally. It is necessary to point out that there are still challenges in the sector that need to be addressed to encourage the entry of more players into the sector and to make the sector even more profitable for all stakeholders. Expansion of the sector and a stronger focus on gas will generate more income for the government and a cleaner environment.
“Some of the challenges include under-investment in gas exploration, appraisal and development activities; lack of a sustainable commercial framework for gas supply and the need to provide more security for the protection of oil and gas assets. These are some of the issues that we expect that an event like this with experts from all segments of the value chain shall tackle and provide creative and indigenous solutions to.
“While our successful operations continue to guarantee the values I have already listed, we are also contributing significantly to human and infrastructural development in our host community and the nation. On Bonny Island in Rivers State where the plant is located, NLNG is working towards making Bonny Island Nigeria’s first malaria-free city through our Malaria Rollback programme and our sterling Community Health Insurance programme which we are driving in partnership with the state government, to ensure access to quality healthcare for resident of the Island,” he said.
Mai-Bornu explained that NLNG is also co-financing with the federal government N120 billion ($315million) Bonny-Bodo Road project to connect Bonny Island to the mainland. “More recently, as part of the Oil and Gas Industry Collaborative Initiative spearheaded by the NNPC to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria LNG sponsored the donation of medical equipment and consumables worth over $4 million to our host state, Rivers State, Lagos State, Bayelsa State, Akwa Ibom and Adamawa States.
“To end this remark, I believe this forum provides a rare opportunity for unfettered discourse on how best to harness and manage Nigeria’s energy potential going forward. We need more collaborative forums like this to ensure a more robust gas industry in Nigeria. With this year having been rightly declared the “Year of Gas”, NLNG is leading the conversation for expansion of the sector with the award of the Train 7 EPC Contract to Saipem Chiyoda and Daewoo (SCD) JV and the JV is now in the driving seat for the execution phase to deliver Train 7.”
– Sept. 35, 2020 @ 12:45 GMT |
Tags: How NLNG reduced gas flaring to less than 20% – Mai-Bornu
