Natural Gas Development Trend in Nigeria: The Investor’s Road Map

Abstract

Natural gas as a cleaner energy is attracting investors across the globe, especially country like Nigeria with huge gas reserves. This paper present the development trend of natural gas in Nigeria from reserves through production, utilization, local demand, gas export, to regulation, Acts and Policies and possible investment indicators. With 200.41 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas reserves in 2018, Nigeria takes the first position in Africa as total proven gas reserves. However, in production, Nigeria falls to third position and consumption/utilization is minimal, indicating that some of the produced gas was flared. With a total reserve of 182.817 Tcf in 2010, 1.54% of the reserves was produced with 19.33% flared, and in 2017, with reserves of 199.09 Tcf, 1.48% was produced and 11.74% was flared. The present state of the power sector, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) (production and consumption) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for vehicles, are indicators for investors to aggressively develop the natural gas infrastructure. However, an independent Regulating Agency needs to setup policies to regulate natural gas flaring and prices in order to guaranty a workable partnership and protect consumers and investors.