By Samuel Ayara
Far from populating an insignificant poll, nor a stroke at validating noisome inclinations, the recent media thumping dealt the performance of Nigeria’s Gas Resources beat of President Tinubu’s administration, under Obongemem Ekperikpe Ekpo; nauseating as it comes, is a conversation Nigerians must converge on, to dispel the festering clouts of ignorance.
The need to know never changes. Motives notwithstanding, Nigerians can only better appreciate the definitively ambitious strides of a vista that pitches economic and environmental sustainability for a nation so brashly exploited, when workings of this newly-prioritized front is adequately explained in departure from our over-the-counter approaches.
Converting waste to wealth, years after endlessly indulging a culture of waste can sure be a difficult call, and explains why it may take another cycle of bashes for Nigerians to understand the energy and investments committed to solidifying the sub-structures of the nation’s gas endeavours. This is not about Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo; the sentiments could not have been different with another, in his position.
Nigerians love super-structures and care so little about the integrity of sub-structures, but a system that is committed to redefining faulty realities, would like the conductor of an orchestra back the crowd; certain to bow for plaudits when the performance is done. For a system that got used to injurious economic and environmental practices in the gas sector, Hon. Ekpo must back the audience conscious there is work to do.
Gas flaring, a phenomenon that allows the release of obnoxious gases into the atmosphere; considered extremely harmful to health and the environment has since 1950s remained a tradition in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. The first unsuccessful attempt at ending it, dates back to 1979, when the Associated Gas Re-Injection Act, pegged January 1, 1984 as deadline for the prohibition of gas flaring.
While the nation’s economy continued to bleed as a result of unconscionable operational practices in the gas sector, leading to an estimated loss of 702 billion Naira due to gas flaring by oils firms, as reported by Vanguard Newspaper of December 5, 2023, care must be taken not to forget that Nigeria in February, 2024 reported progress with TotalEnergies ending routine flaring in all its operations.
Scratching such feat in a little above six months, after over four decades of pretentious drive to end the dare monster of flaring in Nigeria, deserves all the accolades. But that will only take Nigerians knowing that gas policies and programmes are no over-the-counter commodities; that is only when Ekperikpe Ekpo and non-performance will cease to be mentioned in the same sentence.
It would matter so little until we all walk the streets with cylinders in search for LPG. Maybe we just then would ask how a Minister who Supervise the domestication of all Liquefied Petroleum Gas produced in Nigeria to stabilize domestic market pricing and resolved legacy indebtedness to gas producers in the power sector was considered as non-performing.
Arguably, the nation’s gas infrastructure in one year has received more attention, with the Commissioning of the ultra modern 23,000 metric tonnes LPG vessel, Temile 10, to boost capacity of LPG transportation from producers to the domestic market and the 3.1million metric tonnes standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd) CNG undertaken by Tetracore Energy Group in Ogun State; Ekpo has been spot-on in the task of re-inventing Nigeria’s new goldmine.
While looking at how soon Nigeria rises to its big advantage on the global gas turf, Lagos State, under Ekperikpe Ekpo’s watch has already witnessed the Commissioning of the 5.2Milliom Metric Standard Cubic Feet per day (MMSCFD) CNG/autogas facility at Ilasamaja, while the 300 Million Metric Tonnes Standard Cubic Feet per Day (MMscf/d) Kwale Gas Gathering Hub in Ndokwa West Local Government Area of Delta State has also come on stream.
With an estimated 202 trillion cubic feet of untapped proven gas reserves, this is no time for tantrums, but an era to build capacity and succeed where we have over the years failed. This perhaps explains the active energy Minister Ekpo has committed to driving bilateral discussions on the Nigeria – Morocco gas pipeline project that is to traverse the Republic of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Core d’Ivoite, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea – Bissau, The Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania and terminate in Morocco with a spur to Spain for onward sale of gas to Europe and the revitalizing the virtual pipeline mode of gas delivery CNG, Small Scale LNG (SSLNG or mini-LNG) for gas supply to power GBI and the commercial sector.
Whether home or abroad, charity for Ekperikpe recognizes the merit of advantage, which explains recent groundbreaking ceremonies for NesGas 50,000 metric tonnes LPG Terminal at Onne, Rivers State; Windek Energy Limited 20,000 metric tonnes LPG depot in Atabrikang, Ibeno LGA, Akwa Ibom State among other projects with a job generating capacity of over 100,000 jobs to Nigerians on completion.
Every job comes with its rules of engagement; Ekpo must have known from the beginning a time his performance would be discussed was underway when he buried his head and heart into getting the job done. What he however did not know was how hasty self-acclaimed regulators from the court of public opinion would jump the guns, rather than learn the workings of a sector that is just building up the air to breathe.
Like Ekperikpe Ekpo, threading uncharted courses are no adventure for the fainthearted; you either win for country or take the fall if you do not. Getting it right with our nation’s gas projects and policies, for its numerous benefits should interest us to do more than rely on the pessimism of naysayers. Energizing our regional advantage and commensurate consolation for our long spell with devastated environment, could just be some of the low hanging fruits we can fixate on.
Samuel Ayara writes from Ibong Otoro in Abak LGA.