Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has inaugurated three expansion projects for natural gas processing plants and a gas pipeline carried out by Nigerian National Petroleum Co. Ltd. (NNPC) and its partners, as announced by the national oil and gas company.
The president stated, as cited in an NNPC press release, that around 500 million standard cubic feet of gas in total will be supplied to the domestic market from these two Gas Processing Plants, marking a growth of over 25 percent in gas supply.
This increase is expected to benefit the Power Sector, Gas-Based Industries, and other crucial sectors of the economy. The Ashtavinayak Hydrocarbon Ltd. (AHL) plant in Kwale, Delta, one of the commissioned gas processing projects, can process 125 MMcfpd of gas and generate 600,000 tons per day of liquid hydrocarbons such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and propane, according to AHL. Gas supply for this plant is sourced from NNPC fields in the state. The other processing plant, established by ANOH Gas Processing Co. Ltd. in Imo State, aims to have a processing capacity of 600 MMcfpd, to be achieved in two phases. ANOH reports that the gas is processed into dry gas, LPG, and condensate.
The plant is fed by a unitized gas development comprising leases owned by Seplat Energy PLC and Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd., as per ANOH. The ANOH Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben Custody Transfer Metering Station Gas Pipeline Projects cover a distance of 23.3 kilometers (14.5 miles), according to NNPC. President Tinubu affirmed, “These are just the beginning,” indicating that the federal government is intensifying its coordination of other significant projects and initiatives to ensure the prompt realization of gas-fueled prosperity in the country.
Regarding natural gas production in Nigeria, there has been a 0.3 percent annual growth in the decade leading to 2022, with output reaching 40.4 billion cubic meters (1.4 trillion cubic feet) that year, according to the latest Statistical Review of World Energy.
This report was previously published by BP PLC but has now been transferred to the London-based Energy Institute starting with the 2023 edition. In December last year, Nigeria’s LNG sector made a breakthrough with the signing of an agreement for the construction of a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) plant by NNPC, local energy engineering company UTM Offshore Ltd., and the Delta government.
The project, identified as the first Nigerian FLNG plant by UTM, is projected to have a capacity of 1.81 (MMtpa) to 2.72 MMtpa. Based on a report by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission dated April 16, 2024, associated and non-associated gas reserves in Nigeria were reported at 209.26 Tcf at the beginning of 2024.
