According to SEPLAT Energy Plc, gas development is still a longer-term transition fuel and offers a clear answer to Nigeria’s current energy crisis.
Effiong Okon, the Director of New Energy at Seplat, made this statement at a panel discussion during the Gas Stakeholders Conversation at the recently completed 2024 Nigeria International Energy Summit in Abuja.
“Increasing the supply of reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is Nigeria’s greatest challenge; but gas is the logical transition fuel, we need to realise this,” Okon added.
He linked gas development to power, liquefied natural gas export, compressed natural gas production, fertiliser production, liquefied petroleum gas production, building materials production, among others.
He said: “Today, we have acute housing and infrastructure shortage, but no commercially viable substitute for the production of building materials like cement, glass, steel; about 90,000 deaths are recorded per year due to biomass cooking; and rising population presents an urgent need to improve agricultural production. We can fund all of the above with gas.
“We can also reduce reliance on petrol, increase and decarbonise domestic transport fuel if we leverage on gas. Of course, these would in turn strengthen our focus on sustainability.”
Okon noted that in order to unlock the full value of Nigeria’s gas, Nigerian energy industry must focus on end-to-end solutions, noting that exploration, production, gas processing, and delivery of gas to the last mile remained germane to maximising the dividends of the resource.
For a more sustainable gas development programme in Nigeria, the SEPLAT new energy director stressed the need for bankability and access to low-cost capital; the use of technology, the Internet of Things, and smart metering to reduce aggregate technical commercial and collection losses.
He recommend technology-enabled revenue delivery opportunities to aid fund collection.
Seplat Energy won the award of the Gas Infrastructure Project of the Year, received by Okon on behalf of the company at the NIES 2024
