(Ecofin Agency) - In Nigeria, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has announced that the country’s gas reserves have increased from 186 trillion standard cubic feet to 190 trillion standard cubic feet.

According to the Director of the DPR, Mordecai Ladan, who was represented by Assistant Director, Domestic Gas, DPR, Chioma Njoku, the updated statistics on the new national gas reserves revealed that the country now has 190 trillion deposit of natural gas, making the country the largest biggest reserve holder in Africa and seventh in the world.

He added that Nigeria has the potential to expand its economy using gas.

“It is a critical strategic consideration that must be embraced. We need to design framework that will focus on gas exploration with full support of industry stakeholders. Coincidentally, most gas discoveries and the reserves were accidentally discovered during crude oil exploration and stakeholders have been calling on the federal government to institute marginal bid rounds for gas exploration,” he said.

Meanwhile the Senior Technical Adviser, Upstream and Gas, to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Gbite Adeniji, said that the country now needs to consider “opening up gas supply from the inland basins. We can’t rely on the Niger Delta alone. There is a lot of gas in the inland basins. It is time we considered developing infrastructure to explore gas in the offshore.”

He said about 11 of the country’s power plants had become inactive as a result of gas constraints.

“An alternative system from the offshore will help. In the inland basins, there are gas reserves that could lend themselves to small power plants. We should think about flexibility. We are working hard on gas terms for PSC concessions. We should consider gas development a matter of strategic importance. Therefore, we need to develop an appropriate legal and regulatory framework. We now have to open a big pathway for new players in the gas sector,” he told Leadership news.

Anita Fatunji