'Gas flaring is associated with the burning of crude oil to extract petrol and other by-products. The fracking, or standard process of refining crude oil has contributed to environmental degradation and global warming.'
While Nigeria’s gas exports improved due to global shortfalls caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, it continues to lag in comparison with other countries with smaller gas reserves. Its highest earning from natural gas export in five years was N2.8 trillion for 700,000 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas in 2022. Comparatively, Algeria with 159tcf of reserves , exported 19.7 billion tonnes, according to Reuters, Egypt with 77.2tcf, exported 8.0 million tonnes of LNG earning $8.4 billion.
Government imposed a penalty of $2 per million cf for gas flared in 2018, and inaugurated a 12-member Flare-Gas Commercialisation Programme Team in 2022. Both failed to stop flaring. Lacking the necessary will, the government shifted its zero-flare gas deadlines from 2020 to 2025, despite being a signatory to the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement targeting zero emissions by 2060, and the Global Gas Flaring Partnership principles for global flare-out by 2030.
Dataphyte revealed that Nigeria generated only 8.0 million megawatts per hour of electricity but wasted a potential 35.4 million MW through gas flaring in 2020. A 2022 survey by the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that only 63.8 percent of Nigerian households have access to cooking gas, while the International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development, Abuja, stated that 93,00 Nigerians, mostly women and children, die from inhaling smoke while cooking with firewood.