Natural gas utilisation in Nigeria: Challenges and opportunities

Following Nigeria's gas reserves currently estimated at 182 TCF (trillion cubic feet) with a projected growth rate of over 70% by 2025, the nation's gas sector has proven to have the potential of being a key player in the emergent global natural gas market. Unfortunately, even with this huge gas reserve, not much has been accomplished with respect of the effective exploitation and utilisation of this abundant natural gas reserve of which some of this gas reserves are termed ‘stranded’ whose volume and location are often considered as non-commercial and difficult to exploit. That notwithstanding, up until now most of the nation's natural gas production has been flared or re-injected to enhance greater crude oil recovery. With electric power generation at its ground state, crippling rate of unemployment, emergent global climate change caused by green house emissions from flare-out, it has become imperative to further find ways to exploit and utilise the nation's natural gas reserves and translate it to the improvement of the nation's economy.This paper provides a holistic review to the various technologies for the development, transportation and effective utilisation of the nation's natural gas reserves, its various challenges and opportunities.

Research highlights
► Nigeria's gas sector has proven to have the potential of been a key player in the emergent global natural gas market.
► Different development concepts and solutions for the effective exploitation and utilization of this abundant natural gas reserve of which some of this gas reserves are termed ‘stranded’.
► Economics and profitability of new and existing industrial gas projects been considered to increase gas utilization with hopes of solving the energy crisis in the country.
► Effective utilization and monetization of the nation's ‘stranded’ gas reserves has the tendency of solving the energy crisis in the country.