Discussants at the Power Dialogue organized by The Electricity Hub in Abuja last week mostly agreed that gas indeed has a strategic role in global energy access, particularly in Nigeria where they observed that about 46% of the population lack access to electricity despite being among the top countries with huge gas reserves.
The Power Dialogue was organized to assess the approaches and complexity to financing gas projects and the role of gas in Nigeria’s energy access.
The discussants include; Frank Edozie, Component Lead (Power) UKNIAF, Oga Adejo-Ogiri, executive secretary, Association of Local Distributors of Gas, Chijioke Ozoho, manager (commercial) Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria and Chineye Nwosu, business development manager, Axxela.
The panel held that given the new restrictions to funding foreign new gas projects, developing countries are challenged with very little time to explore gas to meet their energy needs and gradually reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.
Oga Adejo-Ogiri said that fossil fuel projects would harm developing nations. Due to the affordability of gas, several economies have made gas a fuel of choice to drive economic development.
While developed countries have long-used gas to power their economies, developing countries are just approaching the phase. Hence defunding gas projects would mean they lose access to the funding required to scale-up gas facilities to power their economies.
According to him, it will lead to reliance on other dirty fossil fuel sources (coal and oil) to meet energy demands, thereby increasing carbon emissions in these regions.
Frank Edozie accused the federal government of ignoring many gas basins especially those in the inland basins (Anambra Basin, Benue Trough, Gongola Basin and Benin Basin) that can supply adequate electricity in the region.
“Rather than de-funding gas projects, financing should go into discovering and exploring these reserves. If any de-funding is required, it should be focused on oil projects,” he said.
Chijioke Uzoho who is the manager (commercial) Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria emphasized the need for Nigeria to commercialize its gas operations. “The window to commercialize gas is fast closing, and it has a strategic role to play in closing Nigeria’s energy access gaps.”
s the world witnesses increase in gas demand, the panelists stated that growing energy demands, following the resumption of economic activities after the Covid-19 disaster, and the increasingly colder winters, have all led to a rise in energy demand across Europe and Asia.
By Chidi Ekpewerechi
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