As countries move their economies to net zero carbon emission by adopting or shifting towards cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy, such as renewables and natural gas, Nigeria is positioning itself to play a leading role in this shift.

The Federal Government, interestingly, is taking a leading role by adopting and implementing policies with the intention of expanding and deepening the domestic Natural Gas market – Pipelines are being laid across the length and breadth of the country, policies that seek to expand the adoption and utilization of Natural Gas as vehicular fuels to replace the conventional premium motor spirit (PMS) and diesel (AGO) – this is expected to reduce the budgetary spend on PMS subsidy and save the country about $2.5Billion annually.

Thus, Natural Gas in the form of Piped Natural Gas (PNG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is gaining more popularity in the country as a more economical alternative energy source and for other uses. The Federal Government, in trying to achieve the desired results with regards to the Country’s ‘Gasification’, set up the Nigerian Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) to drive its enhanced Gas domestication plans.

Nigeria currently has 206 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves that has been discovered whilst prospecting for Oil; so, it was accidentally discovered. The country is working towards growing the reserves to 600 trillion cubic feet – this will enable Nigeria to achieve the desired development required of a gas nation. This makes Nigeria primarily a Gas region, with some oil reserves.

Thus, if the proven gas reserves of the country are developed and complimented with a holistic development of the entire gas value chain, it will stimulate the astronomical growth of the economy. However, the achievement of this growth is largely hinged on the determination of the FGN to encourage and attract local and foreign investment to the gas sector. In order to tackle the infrastructural challenges of utilizing natural gas, especially the huge capital outlay necessary for transporting natural gas from the producing fields to consumers, focus is now on expanding the transportation infrastructure, adoption of enabling policies to make the sector more attractive for private players to invest.

Furthermore, the Government went a step further by declaring this decade as the decade of Gas, and also declared Gas as our transition fuel as we move towards a net-zero carbon economy. In spite of the many challenges, in recent times, some factories in the country are switching to NG, to minimize energy cost, while contributing to the global efforts to reduce global warming.

This is testament to the efforts of Government through the NNPC Gas Marketing Limited (NGML), NNPC Gas Infrastructure Company (NGIC), NNPC, NIPCO Gas Limited and other stakeholders across the entire Natural Gas Value-Chain.

NIPCO Gas Limited is a leader in the downstream sector of the Oil and Gas industry in Nigeria. It has, for more than 2 decades, played a leading role in the development of the domestic Natural Gas market. It has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in pipeline infrastructure and compression stations across several states.

In 2009, NIPCO pioneered CNG and AutoCNG in Nigeria, and has so far converted over 7,000 vehicles to NG enabled vehicles. It was also the first to install CNG dispensing fuel stations, servicing private and commercial vehicles. As at today, through its pipeline network and partnership with NGML, NIPCO Gas provides Piped Gas to about 30 clients – mostly industries. Whilst, through our robust virtual pipeline network, comprising several state-of-the-art Gas compression stations with total compression capacity of over 60 million SCF, and a fleet of over One hundred cascade/cannister skid trucks, we convey CNG to most parts of the country.