WHEN WILL GAS FLARING END?
It’s time to stop the harmful practice of gas flaring
Whereas Nigeria has over the decades reaped huge revenue from oil, the converse side of it is that gas flaring, a concomitant effect of exploration activities, does a lot of damage to the environment. It involves burning off gas released by oil extraction—which sends plumes of toxic smoke into the air. It has been established that gas flaring endangers human health, harms local ecosystems, emits large amounts of greenhouse gases and wastes vast quantities of natural gas.
In the first half of 2024 alone, an estimated 148.7 million standard cubic feet of gas were flared in Nigeria, according to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA). With the value of the gas flared in the first six months of the year estimated at around $360 million (about N600 billion), it is not lost on experts that we fritter away an amount that could have provided much-needed relief to Nigeria’s ongoing foreign exchange woes. Besides, according to experts, this amount of wasted gas has the potential to generate approximately 3,401.83 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power over 3.4 million households. This is despite the fact that gas flaring is against Nigerian law.
Unfortunately, oil companies in Nigeria, without any exception, have continued to engage in indiscriminate flaring of gas. Dating from the first day oil was extracted in Oloibiri in the Niger Delta, gas flaring has continued unabated and with impunity. Sadly, human beings live next door to the roaring, ground level flares some of which go up as high as a multi-storey building, emitting black clouds of toxic smoke. In fact, environmental activists have attributed gas flaring to health hazards and medical conditions like cancer, asthma, chronic bronchitis, blood disorders, and other diseases.
These health problems affect the people of oil-producing communities. Other health hazards arising from gas flaring include the fact that it causes acid rain with its negative impact on the soil, leading to reduced crop yields. It equally does harm to the ecosystem, damaging flora and fauna, just as pollution of sea waters leads to decline in fish population. The litany of woes caused by gas flaring continues with serious consequences for the well-being of the nation and its people.
This damage to man and the environment in the oil producing areas has continued just because successive national governments have failed to take decisive action on the matter. For instance, past governments have set deadlines for oil companies to end gas flaring in the country, but the deadlines came and passed just as the harmful activity continued. In 1969, the administration of General Yakubu Gowon set the first deadline that within five years of business, an operating oil company must cease flaring gas. Unfortunately, whereas several countries in the world have taken measures to enforce compliance with such laws, Russia and Nigeria remain the only two top oil producing countries where the malaise continues as a matter of routine practice.
Aside from the health and environmental consequences of gas flaring, the nation also loses billions of dollars’ worth of gas which is literally burnt off daily in the atmosphere. Much of this can be converted for domestic use and for electricity generation. In recognition of potential values of flared gas that could be harnessed to stimulate economic growth, drive investments, and provide jobs in oil producing communities, the federal government approved the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP) in December 2016. But almost a decade after, not much has been achieved. Yet Nigeria is a signatory to the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) principles for global flare-out by 2030.
