Only A National Gas Policy Can End Flaring, Says Kachukwu

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Dr Ibe Kachukwu, said only availability of a gas policy would end flaring of the associated petroleum product in Nigeria.
Kachukwu stated this while responding to question from senators while being screen as ministerial nominee at the Senate in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said that NNPC had tried several options to curb the phenomenon but did not succeed due to certain limitations.

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Dr Ibe Kachukwu, said only availability of a gas policy would end flaring of the associated petroleum product in Nigeria.
Kachukwu stated this while responding to question from senators while being screen as ministerial nominee at the Senate in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said that NNPC had tried several options to curb the phenomenon but did not succeed due to certain limitations.
He said that he was passionate about ending gas flaring, not just for its environmental problems but also the economic loses it was to the country.
“Apart from being someone from the South-South for which the environment is a major concern to me, gas flaring cannot be a commercial way of dealing with the issue.
“Although we approached gas flaring from a position of penalty for flared gas, we need to begin to look at taking away flaring from a position of investment in the translation of flare to money.
“To stop flaring, we need investment and a lot of that money is not there; so, we need to provide a National Master Gas Plan, which must be gazetted, a gas plan which must be put into action to enable us move forward.
“The single most important deterrent to gas flaring in this country is the absence of policy, the absence of status, master plan and incentives,” Kachikwu said.
He said that countries like Qatar and United Arab Emirates were “moving fairly rapidly’ in their gas development, leaving Nigeria behind.
He, therefore, insisted that the right incentives must be created for the nation to fully launch itself as one of the major gas producers rather than a gas-flaring one.
The NNPC boss maintained that the nation must embrace gas now, both for local consumption and for external supplies ‘’as the era of oil is beginning to slide’’.
“If we don’t sign up to them now, in 10 years when we are ready, there will be no market to take them.
“If we continue to be tied to the prison yard of no changes, because of the ramifications of what makes business sense, this country will grind to a halt.
“We should be bold enough to take the political will to make the changes, and in any revolution, we have individuals who may be innocent in the process of the change,” he said.
On subsidy removal, Kachukwu said that although the present administration would have been in support, President Muhammadu Buhari had insisted that all palliatives must be in place before its removal.
According to him, there must be an effective transport system, health system, power and other social security systems to reduce the over reliance on petrol.
The nominee added that when all these were in place, ‘’Nigerians will not feel the shock, if subsidy was removed’’.