Mohammed Shosanya
The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Nigeria Council, has emphasized the need for Nigeria to effectively harness potential of gas resources with a view to promoting energy transition and security.
The chairman, SPE, Nigeria Council, Mr Felix Obike,who gave the suggestion,while briefing journalists in Abuja,also advised Nigeria to deepen programmes and projects on gas utilisation and policy implementation in realization of the net zero carbon emission.
He noted that gas, which Nigeria has reserves of more than 200 trillion cubic feet, is a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than oil or coal, and can play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking on the move to achieve net zero emission, he said,the country as a gas country had readily available gas resources to exploit and guarantee energy security.
He said apart from investments, funding, infrastructure and technologies coming to play in energy transitions, capacity building was also paramount to harness gas potential.
He added that capacity building was also being spearheaded by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) in the tertiary institutions by ensuring development of professionals to project this development.
This, he said was being done by encouragement and inclusive of gas generation and technology courses among others in tertiary institutions curriculum and sponsoring them.
He said in as much as we are trying to decarbonise, we still need to develop our reserves to harness opportunities in oil and gas industry which was the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.
“Gas as a cleaner energy for energy transition will be effective for Nigeria looking at its affordability, sustainability and energy security.We are now trying to harness these resources, having modular approaches by different companies of developing gas reserves, producing them in a safe manner to reduce emission through technological applications,” he said.
