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Daukoru identifies
prospects, challenges for Nigeria�s LNG
By Bassey
Udo
Senior
Correspondent,
Abuja
Special Adviser to President
Olusegun Obasanjo on Petroleum and Energy, Edmund Daukoru, says the future
holds brighter prospects for the growth of Nigeria�s gas industry,
particularly in the Liquified
Natural Gas (LNG) business.
Daukoru, who spoke on
"Prospects and challenges for LNG development in Nigeria" at the fifth CWC
Annual LNG Summit in Rome, noted that with the fast pace of growth in the
world�s energy demand, there was bound to be enormous pressure for
Nigeria�s gas resources in the near future saying
that
with the decline in indigenous
gas production in the United States and Europe in recent times, there
would be increased reliance outside their traditional sources from Canada
and Russia to make-up for the shortfall.
Recalling World Bank�s
projections that gas would overtake oil as the fuel of choice in the
second half of the century, he stressed the need for a corresponding
change in the energy mix by developing Nigeria�s LNG to support its
supplies to the global gas market.
Nigeria, he pointed out, holds
a significant proportion of the world�s gas reserves in the Niger Delta
region and the deep offshore of the Gulf of Guinea, adding that a
combination of abundant low cost reserves and its strategic geographic
location relative to the United States and European Union (EU) markets and
offers tremendous opportunities for LNG development in Nigeria in the
coming years.
With the country�s proven gas
reserves of over 187 trillion cubic feet (TCF) from the Niger Delta, and a
potential to double or triple that volume in the Deepwater of the Gulf of
Guinea, Daukoru said government has a long-term plan to turn Nigeria�s
economic base from oil to a combination of oil and gas by building a gas
business that would generate as much revenue from gas as from oil by the
year 2010.
He identified the major
challenges government is facing in developing the gas sector as including
the drive to end the flaring of associated gas and the provision of an
appropriate framework for the development of natural gas to meet growing
demands as well as the aspirations of government and other stakeholders.
Apart from opening up acreages in the Chad and Anambra Basin that have
remained dormant, he said other concessions have also been identified in
the Niger Delta to new investors to encourage the development of Onshore
Delta portfolio.
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