Oil & Gas
THE Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, has invested N150 million to upgrade three jetties in Lagos. Tony Attah, managing director, NLNG Limited, said the money was used for the refurbishment and upgrading of the Petroleum Wharf Apapa, PWA, North Oil Jetty, NOJ, and Bulk Oil Platform, BOP, to increase cooking gas supply to domestic market.
At the cooking gas terminal in Lagos, on Thursday, Attah said the NLNG team decided to visit the facilities to look at the infrastructural challenges inhibiting the free flow of the product into the market. He added that the company had committed to supply 350,000 tonnes of cooking gas into the market, but supplied only 262,000 in 2016 because of these challenges.
“NLNG will refurbish some of the jetties and upgrade them so that they can have more capacity to receive and operate optimally and safely. Once supply increases into the market it will reduce the ability of people to play foul. As part of NLNG’s constant advocacy on helping to build a better Nigeria, we are focusing on supply of LPG,’’ he said.
He said the company was committed to the development of Nigeria, adding that part of its vision is to help build a better country. “We focused on bringing energy into the country; today most of it is within the domestic. But the future that we see is an industrialised aspect powered by LPG. In 2007, when there was a shortage of LPG in the market, NLNG intervened and we are glad to say that as a result of NLNG’s intervention the volume consumed has scaled up to over 250,000 tonnes. And we are looking to scale the volume up more as the company has set aside 350,000 tonnes for the market.’’
When the NLNG team visited NIPCO Plc, Venkataraman Venkatapathy, group managing director of the company, said the company had commenced construction of 5,000 metric tonnes LPG storage tank to boost domestic gas supply to the market.
Venkatapathy said that the tank, which is the largest storage facility in African, will improve access, and facilitate gas evacuation across the nook and crannies of the country by ensuring quick turnaround of NLNG vessel.
He commended NLNG for playing a big role as the biggest producer of LPG for domestic consumption. “We have excellent relationship with off takers who for obvious reasons (proximity to jetty, enduring LPG business operations, improved loading and weighing facilities to ensure accuracy of product loaded. We thank NLNG for proving LPG receipt facilities in BOP follow by that in PWA, this will help for easy berthing of the vessels. Now NLNG can vessels can pump simultaneously in two different pipelines to PPMC and another to NIPCO,” he said.
Meanwhile, the federal government has said that the recently approved National Gas Policy would remove the barriers affecting investment and development of the gas sector of the petroleum industry. Idang Alibi, director of press in the ministry of petroleum resources, in a statement on Wednesday, July 5, said the new policy articulates the vision of the federal government of Nigeria, sets goals, strategies and an implementation plan for the introduction of an appropriate institutional, legal, regulatory and commercial framework for the gas sector.
He added that to ensure consistency in government policy objectives at all times, it should be reviewed and updated periodically. He maintained that the gas policy intends to move Nigeria from an oil-based economy to oil and gas-based industrial economy which would be driven by certain core principles. The principles, he said, include separating the respective roles and responsibilities of government and the private sector; establishing a single independent petroleum regulatory authority and implementing full legal separation of the upstream from the midstream.
Alibi further stated that other principles are implementing full legal separation of gas infrastructure ownership and operations from gas trading; realising more of the LNG international downstream value; pursuing a project-based rather than a centrally-planned domestic gas development approach and making a strong maintenance and safety culture a priority among others.
He added that the main aspects of the recently approved National Gas Policy cover governance, as it relates to legislation and regulation; industry structure; development of gas resources; infrastructure; building gas markets and developing national human resources.
— Jul 17, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT
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