Nigeria targets $12 billion annual revenue from gas exports

Lagos (Platts)--4Jul2006

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo has projected Nigeria's earnings
from gas exports to top $12 billion annually by 2009, the state news agency
reported Tuesday.
Crude oil presently account for more than 90% of Nigeria's export
earnings, which averaged $15 billion annually in the last three years on the
back of high oil prices.
"Nigeria is really more of a gas nation than an oil nation," Obasanjo
told members of a parliamentary committee on gas on a visit to the seat of
power in Abuja.
"It is currently estimated that by 2009, Nigeria will be earning about
$12 billion per annum from exports of natural gas," he said.
The President urged members of the parliament to provide legislative
support for the government?s efforts to boost income from gas, which is
presently dominated by exports from the Bonny LNG plant.
Obasanjo said that in 2002 alone, Nigeria lost about $2.5 billion through
gas flaring, adding that this figure has now been drastically reduced through
measures taken by his administration to curb gas-flaring and boost the
profitable exploitation of Nigeria's gas reserves.
Nigeria has already directed oil producers in the country to end gas
flaring from oil fields spread across the delta, by 2008. The flaring has been
a constant source of agitation and violence in the Niger Delta as communities
protested over environmental pollution.
Obasanjo also urged the nation's parliament to expedite action on the
passage of all pending legislation for the management and production of
Nigeria's gas resources, adding his government was committed to setting up a
functional framework for the development of the country's gas reserves.

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