Environmental Impact of Gas Flaring

Ugo Aliogo examines the environmental impact of gas flaring in Nigeria

Gas flaring is the burning of natural gas and petroleum hydrocarbons in flare stacks by upstream oil companies in oil fields during operations. Gas flaring usually led to ozone layer depletion, climate change, global warming, acid rain and rise sea level. It impacts the climate and environment negatively. It contributes to global warming by releasing CO2. It also causes acid rain, which affects the productivity of soil for agriculture, is also caused by gas flaring.

The World Bank reported that gas flaring costs the global economy $20 billion in 2018, while in Nigeria, Pricewater Cooper (PwC) estimates that the Nigerian economy lost N233 billion ($761.6 million) to gas flaring, which translates to 3.8 per cent of the global total cost in 2018.

The percentage of gas flared in Nigeria has been reducing since 2002 and stood at 10 per cent in 2018. The country still ranks in the top 10 gas flaring countries in the world, with 7.4 billion cubic feet in 2018. Total gas flared in Nigeria accounted for 6.9 percent of the top 10 gas glaring countries in 2018.

Nigeria is the number one gas flarer in Sub-Saharan Africa and has consistently been among the top seven flarers globally for the past decade, only behind Russia, Iraq, Iran, the United States, Algeria and Venezuela. These countries produce 40 per cent of the world’s oil each year, but account for roughly two-thirds of global gas flaring.

The World Bank in another report stated that Nigeria is one of the top seven gas-flaring countries. It is estimated that around 2 million people in the country live less than 4 km away from a flare site.

The report revealed that most of the focus on the impact of flaring has been on the economic impacts. Likely harm to human health, which can be long-lasting, has largely been ignored. Available health evidence is limited to small case studies examining the impact of flaring in a few communities around flaring sites. The lack of evidence is not surprising because identifying the comprehensive health impacts of flaring requires detailed data on air quality, flaring volumes, and health records, which are often unavailable or unreliable in developing country context.

Report said: “In our recent paper, we bridge this gap by linking data on gas flaring locations and volumes from satellite observations with child health data from Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) to examine the impact of flaring. The satellite observations come from the VIIRS Nightfire aboard the Suomi satellite launched in 2012. Its sensors can detect heat emitted by gas flares at excellent spatial resolution by collecting shortwave and near-infrared data at night.

“Information collected has been used to identify flaring spots and estimate global gas flaring levels. The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency and the Nigerian Ministry of Environment have collaborated to make the geographic coordinates of each flaring point in Nigeria as well as monthly estimates of the flare volume from each location publicly available. 

“We calculated the risk of exposure to flaring for each DHS cluster as the inverse distance (to each DHS cluster) weighted average of flare volumes from each flare site. This approach allows us to consider the different volumes of gas flared in each location and to account for the potential effect of offshore flaring in an equivalent way to onshore flaring.” 

The gas flare tracker of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), from January 2013 to December 2021, the country flared 3.4 billion standard cubic feet (Mscf) valued at $12.0 billion. That resulted in CO2 emissions of 182.3 million tonnes. Narrowing down to Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area where Obrikom is located, within the same period, 129.3 million Mscf was flared resulting in the emission of 6.9 million tonnes of CO2.

In areas with limited infrastructure, this gas is burned off either at the top of a large stack or from a pit in the ground, often with devastating effects on local communities.

In addition to the noise and light, flaring emits black carbon, methane and volatile organic compounds. Black carbon and methane are both powerful climate forcers are dangerous air pollutants. Black carbon is second only to carbon dioxide in terms of its impact on the climate.

Ending Gas Flaring

Although, there have been several calls on the government to end the harmful practice over the years, but none of the calls have obliged authorities to act decisively. The best it has done has been to announce new policies and dates to end the flaring but still, no concrete actions have been taken. For instance, Nigeria announced it would end the practice in 2009 but failed. Again, it set a 2012 target but missed it too.

The Programme Manager and Head of the Niger Delta Resource Center, ERA/FoEN, Alagoa Morris, averred that gas flaring is an illegal act perpetrated by the Oil companies and hence, the introduction of payment of fines from defaulting oil companies.

He also stated that the making payment of fines for gas flaring as a related crime is in itself not just ridiculous, but portrays the fine collector as a rent seeker at the expense of the general safety and good of the people.

He added: “For once, government should take the issue of gas flaring seriously and put an end to the resource wastage and pollution of the environment. Stakeholders should not relent, but tighten the pressure to ensure routine flaring of gas becomes history.”

Nigeria is now targeting 2025 to end gas flaring as the government has missed deadlines to end it on several occasions since 1979. Each time Nigeria misses a deadline, it causes harm to those living in the vicinity of the gas flares. 

The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), a government-run satellite tracker, said that 1.8 billion standard cubic feet (scf) per day of gas was flared in the last nine years. Flaring that attracted about $3.6 billion in penalties, little of which were paid.

The volume has generated 95.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. The flared gas is valued at $6.3 billion and it could generate 179.9 thousand GWh, according to data from NOSDRA. In 2020 alone, natural gas valued at $1.24 billion was burned by oil companies, one which could generate the annual electricity use of 804 million Nigerian citizens, the tracker shows.

Impact of Gas Flaring

Gas flaring poses damage to human health, therefore there is a need to implement measures to reduce or end gas flaring to protect the health of communities living near flaring sites.

Study reveal that the flares associated with gas flaring give rise to atmospheric contaminants. These include oxides of Nitrogen, Carbon and Sulphur (NO2, CO2, CO, SO2), particulate matter, hydrocarbons and ash, photochemical oxidants, and hydrogen sulphide (H2S). These contaminants acidify the soil, hence depleting soil nutrient. Previous studies have shown that the nutritional value of crops within such vicinity are reduced. In some cases, there is no vegetation in the areas surrounding the flare due partly to the tremendous heat that is produced and acid nature of soil pH.

The study also explained that the implication of gas flaring on human health are all related to the exposure of those hazardous air pollutants released during incomplete combustion of gas flare. These pollutants are associated with a variety of adverse health impacts, including cancer, neurological, reproductive and developmental effects. Deformities in children, lung damage and skin problems have also been reported.

Experts say residents of communities where gas flaring takes place stand higher risks of experiencing medical conditions like respiratory disorders and cancer, and children like Faith’s are not left out. A study by researchers at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology found the residents of Igwuruta, a community impacted by gas flaring like Obrikom, have a high frequency of medical conditions like eye and skin irritations.

 A 2017 study also found that persons living in gas-flaring host communities in the Niger Delta are 1.75 times more likely to be hypertensive than persons resident in communities without oil and gas exploration activities.

A World Bank study published stated that due to gas flaring, children – particularly those under five years old have been impacted, especially with coughs, respiratory symptoms, fever and short-term nutritional issues including being underweight.

Nigeria as a whole has steadily reduced its flaring by some 70 percent over the past 15 years. Flaring has declined from over 25 bcm in 2000 to close to 7 bcm in 2020, while oil production has remained essentially flat at around 2 million daily barrels.

However, in the Niger Delta, companies have only reduced flaring by 10 percent since 2007, preferring to pay fines rather than abate gas-flaring activities.

A study by Gas outlook stated that Gas flaring is the controlled combustion of associated gas, a large volume of which makes up Nigeria’s gas reserves, generated during various processes, including oil and gas recovery, petrochemical process, and landfill gas extraction.

The study posited that gas flaring pollutes the air, heats up the atmosphere and releases greenhouse gases, a World Health Organization (WHO) report said. The process of gas flaring results in the dissemination of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants such as carbon dioxide, methane, ethane, propane, butane, hydrogen sulphide and nitrous oxide.

But gas flaring, routinely carried out by oil exploration companies in Nigeria, also poses a significant hazard to the health of populations exposed to it.

According to a study, around 12 million tons of methane are released into the atmosphere yearly in the Nigerian states of Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta. About 2 million people live within four kilometers of a gas flare in the Niger Delta, an area long associated with international oil majors including Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron.