Nigeria has said that it plans to reduce importation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) into the country when the 100 million standard cubic feet of gas capacity facility at Oredo flow station in Benin City, Edo State, is commissioned.
While inspecting the facility on Tuesday, the group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, said that the Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility (IGHF) project built by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) will be commissioned on October 31, 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The plant has an estimated product streams of 330 tons of liquefied petroleum gas, 345 tons of industrial-grade propane, and 2,600 barrels daily of condensate. When completed, it will deliver 260,000 metric tons of LPG representing 40 percent of domestic requirement significantly cutting the product import.
“Completing this project is a monumental feat for this country and we know that there are other efforts that are going on and we are supporting all of them. But ultimately what is important is that this country will be sufficient in LPG within a short period of time,” Kyari said.
According to him, about 5billion standard cubic feet of gas is being delivered into the domestic market. “The contribution of that gas from NPDC is at least 500million standard cubic feet of gas. So NPDC is a critical stakeholder in the supply of gas into the domestic market”, he said.
The NNPC boss, who commended the management of the NPDC for the speedy completion of the project, however, added that NPDC targets production of 500,000 barrels of petroleum products per day. He explained that NPDC at the moment produces 260, 000 barrels per day as against 136,000 barrels in 2019.
“This is possible within two years, we have lined up of projects and activities. Today we have the highest number of rings running in this country. Five rings running at the same time adding incremental value, delivering major projects which will ultimately take to producing that 500,000 barrels per day target.
“NPDC is a company 100 percent owned by Nigeria and we are delivering it to be the number one upstream company in this country.
With the support and alignment of all the stakeholders for us to deliver this company as the number one upstream company, we are going to ensure that gas will now be delivered without interruption into the domestic market, supply of crude oil to the international market by our own company by our own control will be justified.
“Today, the largest contributor gas to the domestic market is NPDC to the power sector. This is a National responsibility and a commercial venture with a national outlook”, he added.
It was gathered that the contract for the construction of the Integrated Gas Handling Facility (IGHF) awarded in 2015 was however started in 2017 due to budgetary constraints.
By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja
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