Will Gas Flaring Ever End?

The Federal Government is also at war with itself. Our present predicament is largely due to the failure of government to complete projects designed to reduce gas flaring, including Brass and Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas, NLG, projects, which were expected to have been completed in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Besides, the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline designed to transport about 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Warri in Delta State, Nigeria, through Niger Republic to Algeria has made no appreciable progress. Where do we go from here?

By Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan

Fire could be man’s best friend or his worst enemy – depending on how he uses or misuses it.

This land of obvious contradictions has been caught severally on the wrong side of the use of fire – burning what should be conserved and conserving what should be burnt!

For example, nations realize that the first contact with them is invariably through their currency.

That explains why their currency is handled with utmost care and respect. Right from the entry point to such countries, you do not need to be reminded to quickly procure a wallet so that you can join in the maintenance culture of their currency.

But in Nigeria where the country’s currencies are treated with utmost disdain and carelessness, the practice of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has been to occasionally gather the mutilated notes and burn them.

Nigerians still got smart on this age-long practice. A few months back, we witnessed the case of some CBN officials whose schedule it was to burn the old notes.

They cornered hundreds of billions of Naira meant for cremation and helped themselves to the old notes.

In the place of the old notes, they burnt old exercise books and newspapers just in case anyone was interested in ashes. This might have been the practice for long but this time around, their cup got full.

For every currency that is destroyed, a replacement is printed and immediately put in circulation.

With the old notes still in circulation plus the presumed replacement, a new inflationary spiral was set in motion.

It was now a case of excess liquidity – as they say in economics, with so much money pursuing very few commodities!

At the other extreme, one would expect that with the crash in oil prices in the international market, which has dipped revenue accruing to the Federation Account, Nigeria would have been looking out for alternative revenue sources.

It is rather disturbing that we are not bothered in the least on how to put an end to the evil practice of gas flaring.

Currently, International Oil Companies, IOC, in Nigeria produce about 2,524 trillion standard cubic feet, scf, of gas annually.

The estimated gas they utilize is put at about 2,235 trillion scf, with a hefty 289 trillion scf flared. Last year alone, Nigeria reportedly lost about N1.6 trillion to gas flaring.

A further breakdown shows that Nigeria loses N139 billion monthly to this monstrous practice.

Among the top 10 gas flaring countries in the world are Russia, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, USA, Algeria and Kazakhstan.

Nigeria is clearly the undisputed heavyweight champion of gas flaring in Africa, where its flares are four times higher than that of the second highest country, Algeria.

Apart from the colossal financial loss from gas flaring, we are told that gas flaring contributes more greenhouse gases than all of Sub-Saharan Africa combined.

The flares contain a cocktail of toxins that impact gravely on the health and livelihood of local communities thus exposing residents of the Niger Delta Region to the high risk of premature death, cancer, respiratory illness and asthma.

A Report on gas flaring issued in 2004 by the Environmental Right Action is instructive: “This is a monstrous and unnecessary state of affairs – especially in a country where more than 66% of the people live below the poverty line and where the benefits of nearly half a century of oil production have gone almost exclusively to the multi-nationals and the corrupt local elite.”

Nigeria is blessed with such abundant gas resources that elsewhere, and is often described as “an ocean of gas with a speck of oil.”

Truly, oil and gas are found mixed up in same walls, with gas on top while oil is beneath.

In order to get to the oil, which has always been described as the lucrative driver, perhaps erroneously, what oil companies do is to flare off the gas to leave the crude oil alone.

While gas flaring has been frowned at in many places, it has flourished in Nigeria.

The normal practice would be to gather the associated gas and re-inject it into the ground and so preserve it so that when crude oil, which is a wasting asset, gets exhausted, we can fall back on the gas reserves.

But the process of gas re-injection is a bit cumbersome and expensive. So the oil companies simply take the path of least resistance by flaring the gas.

In Europe, 99% of the associated gas is either used or re-injected into the ground.

The Federal Government has tried to compel oil-producing companies to adopt the gas re-injection option by imposing sanctions for gas flaring.

In 1979, the Associated Gas Reinjection Act was promulgated. By a further amendment in 1984, a fine of two kobo was imposed on oil companies for each 1,000 cubic feet of gas flared. Oil companies easily opted for the fines.

Various target dates to end gas flaring have been set but such targets have been met more in the breach than in the observance, leading Climate Justice to conclude, rather ruefully, that “Broken promises, shifting commitments, shady deals and ignored legislation mar the history of flare-out targets.”

Suddenly, even the World Bank is beginning to vacillate towards 2030 for zero-flaring, which leads us to ask if gas flaring will ever end.

The Federal Government is also at war with itself. Our present predicament is largely due to the failure of government to complete projects designed to reduce gas flaring, including Brass and Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas, NLG, projects, which were expected to have been completed in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Besides, the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline designed to transport about 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Warri in Delta State, Nigeria, through Niger Republic to Algeria has made no appreciable progress. Where do we go from here?

Gas flaring is wasteful and evil. Therefore, nothing short of zero-flaring is acceptable, particularly in the face of our dwindling oil resources. The time to act is now!

Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan is a public affairs analyst and Chairman, Board of Directors, Edo Broadcasting Service. He can be reached at: joligien@yahoo.com