By Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN Oct 31 (Reuters) – Nigeria may shut down oil
fields as it tries to clamp down on gas flaring, even if it
means a loss of revenue, the petroleum industry’s chief
regulator said on Wednesday.
Africa’s top oil producer and holder of the world’s seventh
largest natural gas reserves is considered to be among the top
two gas flarers in the world, burning off unwanted gas, after
Russia.
“One of the things we are doing is to do some analysis for
government, to such an extent that it will even mean a proposal
to shut down fields to avert huge gas flaring,” Osten
Olorunsola, director of Nigeria’s Department of Petroleum
Resources, told Reuters.
“We will probably make that position known to government
very soon,” said the man appointed last year by President
Goodluck Jonathan.
Despite a noticeable dip in flaring of associated petroleum
gas, produced as a by-product of crude extraction, Olorunsula
said the government was unhappy with the pace of decline.
He said Nigeria currently routinely flared between 1.3 and
1.4 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas a day, down from roughly 2.5
bcf about one and a half years ago.
Russia flares around 20 billion cubic metres of associated
gas each year, or approximately one-third of the total amount
extracted at the country’s oilfields.
“Over the last few years, we have seen some bit of
reduction, but the quantum is not as expected. We want a lot
more to come down as low as possible,” Olorunsola said.
Continued…
