Nigeria is losing $600 million due to under reporting of gas flaring every year even as they tasked operators in the oil and gas sector to fully implement the mechanism put in place by the Advocacy for Gas Flared Accountability in Nigeria (AGFAN) to avert the trend.
Stakeholders who spoke with LEADERSHIP, at the Accountability for Gas Flared and Clean Energy Advocacy (AGFACEA) technical session with relevant stakeholders and regulatory agencies, being organised by AGFAN, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Palladium, on Wednesday, in Lagos, said Nigeria is a major gas flarer/global GHG emissions with 347million tonnes of Co2.
The CEO, Initiative for Community Development, Benjamin Ogbalor said, gas flaring is a loose-loose situation, adding that, there has been heightened concerns and agitations in oil producing communities due to increased incidence of regular high temperature or thermal gradient and unprecedented heat for humans, crops and animals in flare vicinity.
As part of efforts to eradicate gas flaring in Nigeria, Ogbalor said, the federal government took a step by increasing the penalty for gas flaring, from 10 cents to $2, to force oil companies to convert the gas flared into something useful to the society.
However, since 2018 when the price of gas flared was increased to $2, the CEO said, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), with the help of satellite data, has proven that there is discrepancy of what has been flared and what the oil companies are reporting, adding that, these companies are reporting lower figure than what is being captured by the satellite.
“There are about four sources of gathering data of the volume of gas that has been flared.”