By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
Nigeria loses a whopping US$2.5 annually to gas flaring, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Gas yesterday revealed at a one-day public hearing on the Gas Flaring Prohibition Bill 2017.
This was just as the upper legislative chamber said that the practice was contributing to air pollution, heat, rainforest damage and climate change.
In his opening remarks, Senator Bassey Akpan said the towering flames resulting from gas burning now seemed to the local villagers as an inevitable consequence of oil production in the country.
Nigeria, he added, had an estimated 188 billion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserve, making it the ninth largest concentration in the world.
Speaking further, he said: “It is estimated that more than two billion standard cubic feet of gas is currently being flared in Nigeria annually which makes Nigeria the highest any member nation of the Organisation of petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC. Consequently, Nigeria accounts for about 19per cent of the total amount of gas flared globally.”
He also said the bill would address the inadequacies and shortcomings of the 1985 Gas Re-injection Act and bring gas flare penalty in line with current economic realities as well as ensuring the achievement of the international flares- out of 1st January, 2030 and ensure the timely review of gas flaring regulations and deployment of an online real time monitoring mechanisms
The President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, who declared the public hearing open, stressed the importance of regulating gas flaring in the country.
He also said the act of gas flaring was not only hazardous to health, but calamitous to the economy and must be stopped if the country must grow.
