By Prince Okafor

With the increasing demand for natural gas in the country, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has projected that the nation’s demands of the product would rise to 23 billion cubic feet per day.

This projection was made by the NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, at the just concluded 15th Oil Trading and Logistics, OTL, Africa Downstream Week in Lagos.

Energy Vanguard gathered that the country produces 3,009,650.25 million cubic feet (MMcf) of natural gas per year, ranking 12th in the world.

The current supply to the domestic market was about 8bcf/d to power, 0.77bcf/d to industries, and 3.2bcf/d for export through the LNG and the West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP), while about 54bcf/d was flared.

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Speaking on the theme of the conference “Downstream in Transition: Getting Set”, the NNPC helmsman said that the country would need a refining capacity of about 1.52million barrels per stream day (MBPSD) to meet its petrol requirement in the next four years.

According to Kyari, “NNPC requires between 1.6billion dollars and 2.7billion dollars to improve the supply and distribution of petroleum products, revamp Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) infrastructure, and build Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) plants in the country.

“The demand for natural gas could grow about four times over the next decade from 4.8billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in 2020 to between 10 and 23bcf/d in 2030.

“The expected demand growth would come from the increase in the wheeling capacity of existing national power grid in line with the Presidential Power Initiative, major fertilizer projects (Dangote, Brass), and industrial demand for natural gas in the northern axis of the country.”

On the global oil market outlook, Kyari said: “Some 10.4trillion dollars global stimulus in response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to the rebound in consumers’ spending while incentives for long-term investments in hydrocarbon had waned.”

Vanguard News Nigeria