May 26, 2014 21:00:36pm GMT
Nigeria oil and gas facility
WorldStage
Newsonline-- The Federal Government of Nigeria has revealed plans to
construct Africa's first multi-billion dollar gas industrial park in
Delta State, it was learnt yesterday.
Minister
of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who spoke at the
opening session of a three-day National Conference/Exhibition on Gas
Resources in Abuja, said that the dedicated gas industrial park is part
of a comprehensive strategy for gas processing in the country.
The
conference with the theme: "Deepening domestic utilization of natural
gas and routine flare elimination" was organized by the Senate Committee
on Gas in collaboration with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and
its agencies in Abuja.
The
Minister whose speech at the occasion was presented by the Group
Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC),
Mr. Andrew Yakubu, stated that the proposed park would consist of
industries that would produce fertilizers, petrochemicals, methanol, and
other related products.
Alison-Madueke
said: "As part of our infrastructure blueprint, we have entrenched the
concept of gas processing facilities, with a view to extracting the
various constituents of natural gas such as the Liquified Petroleum Gas
and ethanol among others.
"These
will help grow LPG availability for domestic use, whilst the ethane
will help fuel the growth of petrochemical industries and the residue
gas will then be used as feedstock fors fertilizer, methanol and so on."
She bemoaned a situation where past administrations reduced gas to second fiddle role in favour of crude oil in Nigeria.
According
to her, the mindset governed how the gas sector was handled initially,
hence, pricing of gas was deliberately low because it was aimed at
disposing an unwanted product.
Alison-Madueke,
also explained that the perceived low value of gas did not encourage
the development of infrastructure around it while the dominant
legislative framework for the industry was essentially based on crude
oil production and not gas.
She
however said that in conformity with global best practices, the
Federal Government had ensured that gas, like other advanced countries,
would henceforth take the centre stage in the country's economic
activities.
She
added: "Gas is fast evolving as the preferred fuel in view of its
relatively more impressive environmental credential and lower cost of
supply than alternative liquid fuel.
"Natural
Gas has the capacity to transform an economy. We have seen successful
examples all over the World. Qatar, which has the highest Gross Domestic
Product in the World, has its growth anchored on natural gas.
"Also,
Trinidad and Tobago saw transformational changes in its GDP and
employment rate as it exploited its modest natural gas resources"
She
insisted that Saudi Arabia, apart from being the world's largest oil
producer, had positioned itself as the world's hub for petrochemical
while Russia had also leveraged its enormous gas resources to transform
its economy.
She
said that the Federal Government in the last three years, begun "the
most aggressive implementation of a nationwide gas infrastructure
blueprint to connect the product with all key supply sources and
markets across the country.
"Today,
we have completed and inaugurated almost 500km of new gas pipelines and
equally developed a network code which governs the flow of gas across
the nation's pipeline network and provide rules for open access among
others.
"I believe these interventions have combined to begin to boost investors confidence in Natural Gas, in Nigeria."
The
Senate President, David Mark, who was represented on the occasion by
the minority whip, Senator Abu Ibrahim, stressed the need to evolve
fresh strategies to generate wealth and employment through the
development of the gas sector.
He
assured stakeholders in the sector that the National Assembly would
hasten the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to bring about a
gas revolution that would make life more meaningful to all Nigerians.
He
urged policy makers to consider the health and well-being of the host
communities in designing framework for the exploration and processing of
oil and gas.
Mark
said: "Indeed the gas revolution has come upon us. However, I need to
stress that the gas revolution is not just about hydrocarbons and
wealth.
"It
is about human beings and the betterment of the lives of people, their
communities and the entire society. We have to explore the varying
opportunities of this revolution and chart a sustainable way forward for
the development of our people.
"The
revolution does not only engender the creation of a plethora of new
jobs but also serves as a springboard for the rebirth of the non-oil
sector in our country, such as manufacturing, solid minerals, and so
on."
He
further noted that in the wake of the green revolution and the adverse
effects of climate change on the people, there is urgent need for policy
makers to ensure that exploration activities are not detrimental to the
social and environmental conditions of the immediate communities.
He
added: "Hence, we also have to consider alternative and cleaner sources
of energy such as wind, solar, bio-fuel, among others.
"Therefore,
in evolving a strategic framework for the gas sector, delegates to this
sector must take into account, the need to properly utilize our
abundant gas reserves for sustainable development, and in the same vein
address the environmental challenges of gas flaring.
"Our gas must ab initio be relevant to our domestic needs especially cooking gas and gas-fired electricity generation.
"To this end, it should ensure that the citizenry have access to affordable and constant supply of energy and power."
Chairman
Senator Committee on Gas, Senator Nkechi Nwaogu (Abia Central)
lamented that Nigeria ranks lowest in gas utilization despite abundant
gas reserves.
Nwaogu
said: "But ours is a paradoxical situation. While we occupy the top
position in gas reserve and production, we equally occupy the last
position in gas utilization.
"With
the current per capital consumption of natural gas in Nigeria at about
1.06kg, Nigeria ranks lowest in Africa with only 5 per cent of her
citizens having access to domestic gas.
"The
low utilization of natural gas in the country is greatly hinged on the
inadequacy of gas transmission and distribution infrastructure which
results to Nigeria flaring about 1.4billion cubic feet of gas per day
and this makes her rank second to Russia in the world in gas flaring."
She
said the conference was organized to find ways of bridging the "huge
gap" between gas production and utilization in the country.
"The
high dependence of Nigerians on other forms of cooking other than gas,
leads to indoor pollution which kills up to 100,000 people globally
every year," she said.
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