Nigeria Gas for Power Drifts Lower in August
Gas supplied to Nigeria’s power plants declined further this summer. However in August the shortfall was less keenly felt, as ample rainfall that month meant that Nigeria’s hydro-electric plants picked up the slack.
State producer Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said in its operations report for August 2017, released November 1, that a national total of 628mn ft3/d gas was delivered to the country’s gas-fired power plants that month, which generated about 2,307MW. That was less than the 689mn ft3/d supplied to such power plants in July which generated 2,655 MW, and the 730mn ft3/d that generated 2,969 MW in June 2017. Nigeria remains in need of new highly efficient gas turbines and power facilities.
NNPC further detailed that 239.03bn ft3 was produced nationally by all producers in August 2017 (equating to average daily production of 7.71bn ft3/d). Of that, 137.36 bn ft3 (57.8%) of gas was sold: 31.72bn ft3 (or 1.02bn ft3/d) into the domestic market and 105.64bn ft3 (3.41bn ft3/d) for export. Of those exports, 87.3% (or 2.97bn ft3/d) went to Nigeria LNG’s Bonny liquefaction complex in August 2017.
Of domestic sales, 61.4% went to gas-fired plants (see above) while the 38.6% (396mn ft3/d) went to industry.
Of overall production in August of 239.03bn ft3, 42.2% was either re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared. Flaring represented 12% of the total.