By KUNLE KALEJAYE

West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAGPCo), operator of the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) system has attributed its deliberate flaring of gas for a period of 20 days, between February 6 and 25, in Ajido, Badagry area of Lagos State to loss of pressure in its pipeline.

The pressure loss which happened in Lome, Togo, occurred on August 28, 2012 leading to gas contamination, and also forced it to stop all gas deliveries to its onshore stations.

Host communities, Ajido, Imeke, Araromi and Agemuwo drew the attention of relevant authorities to the development, claiming about 170 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (MMscfd) had been flared into the environment.

They, therefore, accused WAGPCo of violating environmental rules guiding flaring in the petroleum sector, adding that the flaring caused some environmental and health hazards within the community and environs where the compressor is situated.

Flaring was inevitable

But explaining what went wrong, the company’s Station Supervisor, Mr. Agboola Olugbenga, said the flaring became inevitable as there was a loss of pressure, which led to water penetration into the pipeline causing severe contamination to the gas.

He noted that in order to extract the excess waste and contamination from the pipeline, flaring became necessary because it is the process by which excess waste or processed natural gas is released from a hydrocarbon recovery or processing facility and burnt safely.

He argued that flaring is used to dispose of purged/wasted gas, unrecoverable gases flashed off from waste hydrocarbon liquids, and also vented gases from vessels and other plant equipment, adding that flaring is the last line of defence in the safe emergency release system of the LBCS gas plant.

“Waste gas from various parts of the plant are gathered together and sent to a liquid knockout drum (The flare scrubber). This will remove any liquid in the waste gas. The gas from the flare scrubber proceeds to the flare stack where it is burnt. The liquids from the flare scrubber are pumped to another tank where it will be removed with a vacuum truck.

“The main by-product of the combustion, water and carbon dioxide (CO2 & H2O) do not impact the environment, hence, the flare does not constitute air quality pollution to the environment,” he said.

Besides, he explained that part of the safety procedures conducted by WAGPCo included the injection of air to the burner tip to ensure smokeless burning thereby minimising air pollution, and flame luminosity to reduce visual pollution.

Furthermore, Olugbenga said that due to lean combustion at a very low pressure (0.05Barg) the greenhouse effect on the environment was minimised.

“Thermal radiation specification is built into the flare stack design. This can be seen at the flare stack where a large area has been left around the flare due to this design. This ensures that the heat radiated from the flare does not affect personnel, equipment or the community.

“Also, due to the safety features mentioned above, the flare is friendly to people, the environment (plants, trees, water, air etc.), and the structures and equipment,” he said.

After vigorous investigation conducted by the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, cleared WAGPCo, on conclusion of the assessment of the magnitude and impact of the flare on the host communities.

WAGPCo’s pipelines runs from Itoki area of Ogun State, through Agido near Badagry in Lagos, passing through 33 Nigerian communities to offshore.

N-Gas, which is jointly-owned by Shell, Chevron and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), buys gas from oil companies in Nigeria and transport the gas to its customers in Benin, Togo and Ghana, through the pipeline.

The International Project Agreement (IPA) signed in May 2003 by WAGPCo and the governments of Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo, with the Secretariat of the ECOWAS as witness, provided that N-Gas be allocated a space in the pipeline that could transport up to 200million standard cubic of gas per day (200mmscf).