THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has said that the country earned $837.74 million from the export of gas in 2016.

The NNPC said in its latest monthly financial and operations report that the money came from exports of liquefied natural gas, LNG; liquefied petroleum gas, LPG; and raw natural gas.

The LNG was exported by the Nigeria LNG Limited, NLNG, while the LPG came from the NNPC/Chevron’s Escravos Gas-to-Liquid plant in Escravos, near Warri, Delta State.

The raw gas was sold by N-Gas, which supplies gas to Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic through the West African Gas Pipeline project, WAGP.

The monthly report which was only released last week, by the NNPC also indicated that the country recorded revenue of N28.4 billion from the domestic sales of gas in the year under review. It said the nation produced a total of 2.581 trillion cubic feet of gas in 2016, adding that of this volume, 1.14 trillion standard cubic feet, TCF, was exported and 307.22 billion cubic feet, BCF, sold in the domestic market.

In the export segment, the NLNG utilised one TCF of total gas output, 94.34 BCF was utilised for natural gas liquids, NGL, and LPG; and 4.06 BCF was utilised by WAGP.

The NNPC also said oil and gas companies operating in the country flared $794.22 million or about N246.209 billion worth of gas in 2016.

It said the companies flared 245.13 BCF of gas in 2016, which, using the current gas price of $3.24 per 1,000 standard cubic feet as quoted by the NNPC, and an average Naira exchange rate of N310 to a dollar, translates to a loss of N246.209 billion.

Specifically, for the months of January, February, March, April, May and June 2016, 22.32BCF; 20.38BCF; 20.11BCF; 18.70BCF; 15.80BCF and 14.80BCF of gas was flared respectively, while 21.79BCF; 21.14BCF; 21.50BCF; 22.60BCF; 24.54BCF and 21.44BCF of gas was flared in the months of July, August, September, October, November and December respectively.

The amount of gas flared represented 9.5 per cent of total gas produced in the year under review, which the report put 2.581 trillion cubic feet of gas.

On its plans for the future, the NNPC noted that beyond growing gas for the power sector, there had been a strategic positioning of the sector to support massive gas-based industrialisation.

The NNPC stated that it would incubate and midwife a portfolio of critical and mutually dependent investments – Central Processing Facilities, CPFs, Fertiliser, Petrochemical, Free Trade Zone, FTZ, infrastructure and Ports – which will jumpstart the gas revolution agenda.

The NNPC added that it intended to develop or take equity in some of these gas-based industries such as fertiliser and others.

—  May 15, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT