From Fred Itua, Abuja
The Senate, yesterday, declared that the country is losing a whopping $2.5 billion every year to gas flaring. The revelation was made just as the Senate began moves to enact a legislation to outlaw gas flaring in the country.
At a public hearing on the Gas Flaring (Prohibition) Bill in the National Assembly, the Senate Committee on Gas Resources also lamented that gas flaring was creating so much health hazards for Nigerians.
This comes as the oil and gas producing communities have requested that monies generated from gas flaring penalties be given to them to take care of the damage done by the practice.
Representatives of the oil and gas host communities led by Mike Emuh also want government to “determine the proportion of outstanding gas flaring penalty levies unpaid by the oil companies under the Extant Act and pay same to the host communities.
Chairman of the committee, Bassey Akpan, noted that despite the huge concentration of gas reserves in Nigeria, issues of unsustainable exploration practices and the absence of gas utilisation infrastructure have promoted the dangerous practice of gas flaring in the country.
Akpan said, “Nigeria has an estimated 188 billion cubic feet of natural gas reserve, making it the 9th largest concentration in the world. Due to unsustainable exploration practices coupled with the lack of gas utilisation infrastructure, we flare more than 75 per cent of the gas produced and re-inject only 12 per cent to enhance oil recovery.
“It is estimated that more than 2 billion standard cubic feet of gas is currently being flared in Nigeria annually, which is the highest in any member-nation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Consequently, Nigeria accounts for about 19 per cent of the total amount of gas flared globally.”
According to the committee, “this gas flaring practice has reportedly cost Nigeria over $2.5 billion annually, in addition to contributing to air pollution, heat, rainforest damage and climate change. In the more than 1,000 oil fields located across the country, the towering flames resulting from gas burning now seem to the local villagers as an inevitable consequence of oil production.”
He said the commitment of the Senate towards stopping gas flaring was informed by the lack of effective regulations to guard against the menace.
The Gas Prohibition Bill, according to Akpan, seeks to prohibit the development of oil and gas fields without plan for utilisation of Associated Gas (AG). It also addresses the inadequacies and shortcomings of the 1985 Gas Re-injection Act while also bringing gas flare penalty in line with current economic realities.