The federal government has put Nigeria’s total gas reserves as of January 1, 2020, at 203.16 trillion cubic feet (TCF), representing a marginal increase of 1.16tcf or 0.57 per cent from the 202tcf recorded in 2019.

The reserves are made up of 100.69tcf of Associated Gas (AG) and 102.47TCF of Non-Associated Gas (NAG).

Also as of January 1, 2020, Nigeria’s crude oil reserves dropped to 36.89 billion barrels, representing a decline of 82 million barrels and 0.22 per cent of what was recorded in 2019.

The Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr. Sarki Auwalu, announced this yesterday at a virtual conversation between DPR and journalists on topical issues in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) also said yesterday that it had deployed a sales and distribution application in the oil and gas secondary model portal that would enable marketers to buy petroleum products online.

Auwalu said the agency was targeting to raise the nation’s gas reserves to 220TCF by 2030.

According to him, of the 36.89 billion barrels, oil accounted for 31.418 billion barrels, while condensate contributed 5.476 million barrels.
On the newly-launched bid round for the 57 marginal oil fields, Auwalu said only not challenging decision on the marginal oil fields were qualified to bid for them.

He added that none of the advertised marginal oil fields is in litigation, stating that the decision to conduct the bid round now was to show that Nigeria was ready for business.

On the level reached with the gas flare commercialisation programme, he said the programme had reached the commercial stage, saying COVID-19 caused some delay in the project.

He said the companies jostling for flare points had met most of the pre-qualification expectations, adding that they have the money and the technology but that COVID-19 has delayed them access to the flare points, as they needed to visit the sites.
“What is holding (up) the programme is COVID-19. Because (the bidders) need access to the flare points…they have to go and see (them) physically. We had to officially extend the programme by six weeks,” he stated.
He, however, stated that there has been a stable profile of gas flare volume between 2017 and 2019 which stands at about 300 billion cubic feet (bcf) per annum.