Mohammed Ahmed, the Executive Vice President of Gas, Power and New Energy at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has said that upcoming gas projects in the country will generate a lot of revenue for the government through taxes and royalties.
He said this in an interview last week during the NNPCL program; Energy and You, airing weekly on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Network.
According to him, Nigeria is aiming for gas commercialization through various projects that will see the populace making use of gas for industrialization, cooking and auto use, as opposed to flaring it.
He said the NNPCL is working to ensure that those who produce the gas will have visibility as to the revenue they will get from their investments and customers will also be sure that once they begin to use gas, there is affordability and sustainability.
He said:
- “The gas, power and new energy directorate in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s basic objective is to ensure the commercialization of our gas assets across the country and this is not only for the domestic market but for exports.
- “In doing that we also have the new energy attached to it, we look at renewables and hydrogen, and all these come together to form what we call the energy transition mix.
- “Our focus is to ensure that there is gas availability, sustainability and affordability across the country.”
According to him, there are various projects that are expanding the horizon of gas supply in the country, through functioning infrastructure that will take more gas into the domestic market.
He said:
- “The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline corridor for instance has three major power plants, the minimum of which is 900 megawatts (MW), these power plants are aimed at sucking up available gas, putting it into use and generating power.
- “This will go a long way to ensuring that industries and factories that are facing the challenge of energy availability, will be happy to suck up the energy from these power plants.”
He also spoke about upcoming gas projects like the Assa North Ohaji gas project.
He said that the project has the capacity to produce Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), thereby making firewood as cooking fuel a thing of the past in the country.
He also said that the project will help to further commercialize the gas that is available in the domestic market. Note that in its latest clean cooking report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that LPG as a cooking fuel in Africa has gained some ground in countries like Kenya, and Nigeria.
However, a lack of natural gas storage and distribution systems in many urban areas in Africa, makes LPG a lower-cost solution than building new pipelines.
During the interview, Mr. Ahmed said that the NNPCL has received several requests from developed and developing countries who wish to collaborate with NNPCL, to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Nigeria.
This is because Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited is incapable of converting all the country’s gas into LNG.
According to him, several gas projects will help transition Nigeria from a petrol-dependent country to a gas-dependent country.
Note that this has been the aim of the government from the administration of former president Muhammadu Buhari who signed off on the decade of gas initiative in 2021.
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