Oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) earned about $323.55 million, or N64.71 billion from the export of gas in January, according to data obtained from the Corporation.
The NNPC, in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for January 2016, put total gas export by the oil and gas companies at 107.85 billion standard cubic feet, BCF, in the month under review.
Using the average gas price of $3 per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet, SCF, as stated by the Nigerian Gas Company, NGC, the export of 107.85 BCF of gas translates to$323.55 million, an equivalent of N64.71 billion using an average interest rate of N200 to a dollar.
Giving a breakdown of the January figures, the NNPC stated that 1.04 billion SCF gas was exported through the West African Gas Pipeline (WAG); and 7.55 billion SCF exported through the Escravos Gas to Liquid, EGTL project. Similarly, 19.6 billion SCF and 79.66 billion SCF were exported through Natural Gas Liquid/Liquefied Petroleum Gas, NGL/LPG, and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, respectively.
Out of the total amount, the NNPC received $135.89 million, about N27.178 billion, being proceeds from the export of gas through NLNG, EGTL, NGLs and N-Gas.
In addition to gas export, 35.17 billion SCF gas was utilised locally, broken down into 22.74 billion SCF for domestic gas to power and 12.43 billion SCF sent to industries. Also, 72.36 billion SCF was re-injected, while 12.11 billion SCF was used for fuel gas.
About 22.32 billion SCF was flared. To this end, the amount of gas flared by the oil companies in January translated to loss of $66.96 million, about N13.39 billion.
In general, Joint Venture, JV, companies produced 173.76 billion SCF gas in January, while Production Sharing Contracts, PSCs, and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, recorded 49.79 billion SCF and 24.37 billion SCF respectively, bringing total gas production in the month to 247.93 billion SCF.
The report explained that, “A total of 247.93 billion standard cubic feet (BCF) of natural gas was produced in the month of January 2015 translating to an average daily production of 8.0 billion standard cubic feet per day (bscfd). For the period February 2015 to January 2016, a total of 2.879 trillion SCF of gas was produced representing an average daily production of 7.889 billion SCF per day.
“Production from Joint Ventures (JVs), Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) and NPDC contributed about 69.83 per cent, 21.54 per cent and 8.62 per cent respectively to the total national gas production.”
“Similarly, for the period of February 2015 to January 2016 an average of 1.055 billion SCF per day of gas was supplied to the domestic market, comprising an average of 701.84 million SCF per day or 66.53 per cent as gas supply to the power plants and 353.06 million SCF per day or 33.47 per cent as gas supply to industries.”
The report also stated that about 734 million SCF/day was delivered to gas fired power plants in January, to generate an average power of about 3,237 megawatts, MW, compared with February 2015 to January 2016 average gas supply of 699 million SCF per day and power generation of 2,990 MW.
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