Nigeria makes $1b from gas sale this year alone
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Abuja has made $1 billion from gas sale to Portugal this year alone and anticipates more hard currency at the completion of the Trans Sahara Gas Pipeline (TSGP) stretching from Nigeria across Niger to Algeria and anchoring in Spain.
Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Chief Executive Officer Mele Kyari disclosed the sale in Portugal when he accompanied President Muhammadu Buhari to visit the country.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is on a state visit to Portugal for the second United Nations Ocean Conference.
“On the sidelines of the event, President Muhammadu Buhari is leading a high-level Nigerian business delegation to the Nigeria-Portugal Business & Trade Forum.
“On the President’s delegation is the CEO NNPC Ltd, Mallam Mele Kyari, who highlighted the age-long energy partnership between the two countries, stressing that Nigeria supplies 70 per cent of energy imports to the European nation.
“This year alone, we have sold over a billion dollar worth of natural gas to Portugal,” the NNPC said on its Twitter handle, per reporting by The PUNCH.
Kyari said at the forum there are ample opportunities to grow energy supply to Portugal as Nigeria has invested in infrastructure to ensure domestic gas availability and increase supply to the international market.
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Trans Sahara Gas Pipeline
Nigeria has been supplying gas to Portugal for decades and wants to be an alternative natural gas source for the larger Europe which seeks to break its reliance on Russian gas.
Petroleum Minister of State Timipré Sylva disclosed this at a meeting of the TSGP partners in Abuja in June.
He said Nigeria alongside Niger and Algeria are committed to the project which will bring Nigerian gas closer to the European market facing high energy prices stoked by the Russian war in Ukraine.
“The project takes our gas to the European market directly. Today a lot of gas in Nigeria is stranded or re-injected because there are no infrastructure to take the gas to the market.
“This project is going to take the gas all the way from where it is produced to the European market, and it cannot be a better time, because gas prices are quite firm at this point,” Sylva said.
“I believe that it is a very good time for us to take advantage of very high gas prices globally.”
It will also enable other countries to benefit, including Chad which is also not far from the corridor of the project, he added.
“So this project has a lot of potential for growing the economies of African countries, West African countries and North Africa.”