By Yemisi Izuora
Nigeria’s domestic gas demand is expected to rise to over 10 Bcf/day by 2020 from a little above 2 Bcf/d now, state-owned oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said Tuesday.
Sabotage attacks on gas pipelines, however, pose a major threat to meeting the demand target, local media quoted power minister Chinedu Nebo as saying.
NNPC CEO Joseph Dawha said that rising demand from the power sector and industry is fueling growth in the domestic sector, with demand set to hit 5 Bcf/d in 2017, before rising to 10 Bcf/d by 2020.
“The federal government and the NNPC have embarked on a very aggressive implementation of the gas master plan to meet the astronomical increase in gas demand,” an NNPC statement quoted Dawha as saying in Abuja.
“Over 500 km of pipelines have been laid and many more kilometres planned in the next two to three years,” he added.
Nigeria has proven gas reserves of about 180 Tcf, the world’s ninth biggest, but Africa’s biggest energy producer continues to burn about 20% of the gas produced, mainly along with crude oil due to the limited domestic market outlets.
The Nigerian government last November signed an agreement with eight oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell and Seplat for the supply of natural gas to 10 power plants in the country, built to tackle chronic energy supply.
At 4 GW, Nigeria’s electricity output is still a far cry from the national demand level, put at around 15 GW.
Meanwhile, attacks on key gas pipelines in the restive Niger Delta area have cut supplies to power plants by 1.1 Bcf/d, Nebo said.