Emmanuel Addeh
As part of effort to expand gas usage in the country, the federal government through the Nigerian Content Development Board (NCDMB) and the private sector, yesterday added about 300 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd) of gas to its national supply base.
The parties concerned are Nedogas Development Company Limited (NDCL), a joint venture company between Xenergi Limited and the NCDMB in collaboration with the Nigerian Gas Company Limited (NGC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
A statement by the NCDMB noted that the group successfully completed the construction and technical commissioning of the 300 MMscfd capacity Kwale Gas Gathering (KGG) and injection facility located in Umusam community, near Kwale in Delta State, Niger-Delta, Nigeria.
The KGG facility, it said, was designed to handle stranded gas resources in Nigeria’s Oil Mining Licence (OML) 56 oil province by providing the opportunity for independent operators in the area to monetise natural gas from their fields.
It noted that this would be done through the gas gathering, compression, injection and metering infrastructure of the KGG for quick access to the market.
The KGG hub, which has been tied-in to the NGC-owned and operated 48-inch OB-3 gas trunk line, the NCDMB stated, was now fully commissioned with an initial gas injection capacity of 25 MMscfd from the plant located 3 kilometres away in Energia’s Ebendo field.
Stressing that the injected gas volumes were being gradually ramped up, NCDMB stated that the project represents a significant milestone in Nigeria’s decade of gas as well as a major achievement in the quest to provide gas into the OB3 trunk line and monetise natural gas resources from the OML 56 producer cluster.
“With the successful injection of gas from the Energia-operated Ebendo field into the OB3, the KGG facility is now poised to receive additional gas from nearby fields including those operated by First Hydrocarbon Nigeria (FHN), Pillar Oil, Chorus Energy and Midwestern Oil & Gas, all aimed at positioning KGG as a fully-fledged gas-gathering facility and hub with single point injection of up to 300 MMscfd of gas into the OB3 via the KGG tie-in,” it stated.
The Managing Director of NDCL, Mr. Debo Fagbami, in his comments, explained that with the completion of the KGG facility, the proof-of-concept to readily monetise gas has now been established.
He stated that this was to the extent of eradicating the pain of seeing an invaluable resource being wasted.
“Rather than seeing gas flaring, we see opportunities to harness the potential of the flare sites from these oilfields which will ultimately convert a wasting resource into an economic asset used to generate cleaner energy,” he stated.
The Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Mr. Simbi Wabote, in his remarks, expressed delight to see the completion of another project under the series of projects being catalysed by the board to realise the decade of gas initiative of the federal government.
‘’Our partnership with NDCL to complete the Nedo gas plant and construct the KGG hub represents another important achievement in our 10-year strategic roadmap to utilise local resources, develop in-country capacities, and create job opportunities in line with the mandate of the board,’’ he noted.
With an estimated 203 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, Nigeria has the ninth largest reserves in the world but has flared significant quantities of associated gas in the last 60 years.
The project, the NCDMB stated, provides opportunities to address gas flaring within its captive areas with positive impact on health and the environment.
Natural gas remains a relatively clean fossil fuel and represents a viable transition to renewably energy which plays a pivotal role in powering the growth of developing economies like Nigeria.
The KGG facility, the content board stated, was set to create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs for indigenes of the host and nearby communities.
