Last year’s natural gas production decreased even though fifteen companies received a N250 billion intervention fund.
The Punch reported that the Energy Institute and KPMG jointly released an industry report stating that between 2021 and 2022, Nigeria’s natural gas production fell by 4 billion cubic feet meters.
Gas production in the country, which was estimated to be 39 billion cubic feet meters in 2012, increased steadily and reached 49 billion cubic feet meters in 2020 before abruptly plunging to 45 billion cubic meters in 2021 and finally 40 billion cubic meters last year.
The report states, “The development occurred in spite of FG’s N250 billion intervention fund through the Central Bank of Nigeria, out of which N130bn was doled out to 15 companies for the construction of Compressed Natural Gas conversion centres.
“The Federal Government introduced the NGEP to make Liquefied Petroleum Gas the fuel of choice for home cooking, captive power, and small industrial complexes, and CNG the fuel of choice for transportation.”
In an effort to boost financing to vital economic sectors, the CBN also unveiled the N250 billion intervention facility following the launch of the NGEP. This facility will aid in encouraging investment in the gas value chain.
The fifteen companies—Dangote Oil Refinery, Nipco Gas Ltd., Nipco Plc., Hyde Energy Ltd., Lee Engineering and Construction Company, Pinnacle Oil and Gas FZE, Transit Gas Ltd., Amalgamated Oil Company Nig Ltd., First Modular Gas Systems Ltd., NOVAGAS Ltd., Greenville Liquefied Natural Gas Company, AP LPG Limited and MOB Integrated Services Limited., Delta State Government, and Gas Nexus Ltd.—which received a combined N130 billion would be facing the Senate Committee on Gas chaired by Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe.
The invited companies must appear with their progress reports, stating the location of the projects and their current status, according to the Senate’s summons letter.
President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chinedu Okoronkwo, bemoaned his organization’s members’ exclusion from the loan in an interview with The Punch.
If they were part of the plan, he boasted, his members would have converted over a million cars to CNG models by now.
“Not a single one of my members received any money. By now, many stations would have started their CNG conversion centers, and more than a million cars would have been converted if such funds had been given to the right people,” the speaker claimed.
According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, as of August, Nigeria needed to spend $20 billion a year on gas expansion in order to complete the nation’s gas infrastructure.
