Yemisi Izuora
Seplat Petroleum has set for itself a new gas supply target as the company repositions to enlarge its domestic gas supply from 300 million standard cubic feet, mscf, to 500mscf by the end of 2017.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of Seplat Petroleum, Mr. Austin Avuru, In 2010 when the company inherited assets from Shell, the installed gas processing capacity was 120 million standard cubic feet per day, while actual delivery was only 60 million standard cubic feet per day.
We came in, inherited these facilities and set out to expand these facilities because we saw a future in gas three years ago, before people saw it. Today, we have revamped the existing 120 million-130 million standard cubic feet per day and have built new 150 million standard cubic feet per day.
Today, our total processing capacity is 300 million standard cubic feet of gas per day but we are actually delivering between 240 million and 280mscf per day into the domestic market.
He stated that there would be a second phase in the company’s gas project, where it would install additional 225mscf processing capacity in addition to what it currently had. “So, that is why I say that by the end of 2017 we will have a capacity to process 500mscf of gas per day,” Avuru added.
Avuru stressed the need for increased exploration for gas reserves, adding than if an updated audit of Nigeria’s gas reserve is done, it will put the nation’s gas reserves at 120 trillion cubic feet, tcf, instead of the 170tcf being touted for over a decade.
He noted that if Nigeria achieves 1.2 million barrels per day crude oil refining capacity in addition to a natural gas production of about 7.3 billion cubic feet per day, that will translate to about 32,000 megawatts of power that would enable the country “become a massive exporter of cement, fertiliser, and petrochemical products.”
According to him, these developments will turn the oil and gas sector into an enabler of massive industrial development instead of just being a mere source of revenue that contributes less than 15 percent to the country’s GDP”.
Avuru called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to sell all its four refineries instead of doing perpetual Turn Around Maintenance, (TAM).
“Nigeria can easily achieve a refining capacity of 1.2 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) if Dangote’s 600,000 bpd refinery comes online in addition to the 445,000 bpd nameplate of all the NNPC refineries which if sold to competent hands would achieve its optimum production capacity,” Avuru said.