US, Nigerian Firms Target Zero Gas Flaring

US, Nigerian Firms Target Zero Gas Flaring

Dike Onwuamaeze

Zeeco Inc of United States in collaboration with Arbel Energy and Logistics Limited (AEL), its country representative in Nigeria, would soon launch a technology that would enable Nigeria to achieve zero gas flaring and reduce emissions in its crude oil production.

The Managing Director of Zeeco, Mr. Nigel Palfreeman, who held an interactive business session in Lagos thursday with operators in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, said his firm’s goal was to introduce technology that would help Nigeria to recover flared gas and process it to useable standard for domestic and industrial consumption.

He added that Nigeria is the seventh largest gas flaring country in the world, which has tremendous negative impact on the environment.

“But we can recover the associated gas and put them into bottled gas that can be used for cooking and other purposes. We have got the ability to recover this gas and turn it into something useful,” he said, adding that “Nigeria has quality oil that produces more associated gas than other countries in the world. The fact is that most of the associated gas has been flared. And this is a big impact on the environment. We are doing studies to look at the gas compositions in the region,” he said.

AEL Executive Chairman, Dr. Umar Ardo, described Nigeria as a gas country with colonies of crude oil and remarked that it seemed that the country has left the elephant to be chasing the rabbit.

“We need to get the elephant, which is the gas. What we are trying to do is to bring the best technology so that Nigeria will exploit optimally its gas commercialisation policy. The world is going toward gas so we need to deal with the best in the gas industry,” he said.

Umar noted that the recovery of the associated gas through the prevention of flaring would solve the problem of environmental degradation and help to preserve the country’s forest resources.

“More than 75 percent of cooking in Nigeria relies on woods, which means that we are destroying the environment. It is said if you want to build the economy then preserve the ecology. And the essence of what we are doing is to building the economy by preserving the ecology,” he added.

He also stated that the elimination of gas flaring would have tremendous impact on gas generating enough gas that would supply electricity to Nigeria.

Umar said Zecco and AEL have been discussing with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which has asked them to make presentations.

“We did that few weeks ago and also to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR),” he said.

He told THISDAY that his organisation has brought the right technology that would enable the government to resolve this gas flaring and succeed in its gas commercialisation policy

“I am 100 per cent certain of its benefit to the country’s economy if the government will queue into it. But, it all depends on the government. This gas policy must succeed. One of the reasons we have not developed much as a country is because our projects are not fully implemented.

“I have brought what will ensure that the gas policy succeeds. It is all about technology and this is about the best in the world. Definitely, we will succeed if we buy into this initiative,” he said.

Similarly, AEL Managing Director, Mr. Adefolaju Amoo, explained that Zeeco is establishing an office for sales and administrative presence in the country to make it easier for people in the operation and engineering to have support services that would add efficiency to their business in the oil and gas industry.

Amoo said Zeeco’s client base include oil majors in Nigeria and petrol refineries.

“We want to make it easier for them to have Nigerian point of contact without going to Europe or Middle East,” he said, adding that “one of the things you have seen is that Zeeco has a lot of industry leading technology that will improve the process of flared gas recovery. The point of recovering flared gas is to reduce emission. Apart from flaring, Zeeco has technology to reduce emission by 60 per cent even while the gas is being flared. It is a process because gas flaring cannot go in just one day.”

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