Sixty‑eight years ago, in a swampy forest at Oloibiri, in present‑day Bayelsa State, Shell struck oil. That discovery in 1956 would transform Nigeria’s economy, placing us among the world’s major hydrocarbon producers. But buried alongside that crude oil was another treasure – natural gas. And for nearly seven decades, we have treated that treasure as trash, burning it off into the sky while our people cook with firewood and our industries shut down for lack of power. This is not an exaggeration. It is a documented fact. Nigerian natural gas is exceptionally pure – low in sulphur, clean‑burning, and highly sought after in global markets. We have 210.54 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world. The NNPC even speaks of an upside potential of 600 trillion cubic feet, which would place us among the top five gas nations globally. Yet, with all this gas beneath our feet, we are not even among the top ten LNG exporters. Qatar, a nation of three million people, produces and exports more gas than Nigeria with its 200 million citizens. Algeria, with smaller reserves than us, produces more gas because it built the pipelines, signed the contracts, and maintained the stability that investors demand. How did we get here? The answer is painful but necessary. For decades, gas was seen as a nuisance – a byproduct to be disposed of rather than an asset to be developed. In the 1990s, Nigeria flared approximately 18 billion cubic metres of associated gas annually. That volume of wasted gas equals about 45 per cent of the energy requirements of France, a major industrial economy. The 1996 Financial Times report quoted in environmental handbooks noted that what drove gas projects in Nigeria was not market demand but “the need to reduce the huge waste of gas, enough to provide power for a small industrial country”. And the reason the waste continued? The six major operators paid minimal penalties for flaring. It was cheaper to burn than to capture. The cost of that choice is now measurable. In 2024 alone, Nigeria flared 5.3 billion cubic metres of gas worth $1.5 billion; by 2025, the annual loss had reached between $3.2 billion to $3.5 billion. Over the past two decades, direct revenue losses from flaring total $56.75 billion, with the broader economic cost – including foregone LNG exports – exceeding $120 billion. That is wealth that could have powered industries, lowered cooking gas prices, and funded healthcare and schools – literally burned away because it was cheaper to flare than to capture. The mismanagement did not stop with flaring. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, now NNPC Limited, became what a recent analysis described as “a citadel of opacity, financial malpractice, and operational inefficiency”. Under previous management, billions of dollars in crude oil revenues were either unremitted, underreported, or misapplied under various opaque arrangements. The fuel subsidy regime became a fiscal sinkhole characterised by gross overstatements, nonexistent verification mechanisms, and allegations of fictitious volumes and round tripping. The transition of NNPC into a limited liability company under the Petroleum Industry Act was supposed to signal a new era of accountability. Instead, old habits continued under a new corporate guise – evading scrutiny by withholding audited statements and resisting structural reforms. Today, the consequences of this history are visible in every Nigerian home. Twenty million households still cook with firewood and charcoal. A 12.5kg LPG cylinder refill costs between N12,500 and N15,000 – unaffordable for millions. Our power grid generates less than half of its 13,000 megawatt capacity because the gas suppliers are not paid, the distribution companies collect only 60 to 70 per cent of what they bill, and the entire value chain is financially broken. The debt owed to gas suppliers has accumulated to N6 trillion, a figure so large it represents systemic collapse, not a temporary shortfall. The cement sector offers a terrifying preview of what could happen with gas. Aliko Dangote recently revealed that for every bag of cement sold for N12,000 in Nigeria, the government takes approximately N6,240 in taxes and levies – a 52 per cent effective tax rate. The same cement exports to Cameroon without paying most of these taxes, meaning Nigerian consumers subsidise cheaper cement for our neighbours. If the same fiscal logic applies to gas – if domestic LPG carries VAT, education levy, health levy, and multiple state charges while export gas flows tax‑free – then we will continue cooking with firewood while our gas lights stoves in Europe. The Petroleum Industry Act of 2021 was designed to fix these problems. It separated regulatory and commercial roles, created the NUPRC and NMDPRA, and promised a new era of transparency. Yet just four years later, the government is proposing amendments that would transfer concessionaire po
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