A monthly report by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has indicated that the thermal electricity generating plants in the country consumed about 139 billion cubic feet (bcf) of natural gas, out of the 934 bcf produced in the country.
The report, which showed operations of the NNPC from January to July 2015, showed that out of the 934 bcf produced for commercial activities, 210 bcf was dedicated to meet the oil industry’s supply obligation to the domestic market, with the power sector taking 139 bcf, leaving other sectors with 71 bcf.
From this volume, the thermal plants received an average of 656 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d), to produce an average of 2,843 megawatts (MW) of electricity per day, thus contributing an average of 84.8 per cent generation capacity to the country’s overall daily power generation volume.
However, the report noted that just about 14 per cent of the total gas produced in the oil and gas industry was sent to the domestic market, leaving 43.5 per cent and 42.5 per cents for both the export market and non-commercialised gas.
From the non-commercialised volume, the report indicated that 475 bcf was reinjected; 87bcf used as upstream fuel while 161 bcf was flared to bring the total of non-commercialised gas within the seven month period to 723bcf, which was almost at parity with the exported gas.
