Addressing Gas Shortages

Recent reports of gas shortages in
some parts of the country in the
past few months have become worrisome for both domestic and industrial gas users. Besides the nation’s abundant natural gas reserves needed to power our power plants, the use of gas for the realisation of Nigeria’s gas master-plan has increasingly become critical to President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda.
It is against this backdrop that it has become imperative for the overhaul, revitalisation and sustainability of the nation’s gas sector. It has indeed become inevitable for the Federal Government to do something urgently to avert an energy crisis in the country.
Hitherto, there were reports of shortages in the availability of kerosene and diesel, occasioning astronomical hike in the cost of these petroleum products. Now, the apparent scarcity of gas has led to price increase and the pressure will, obviously, shift to the use of firewood, a situation that should be discouraged.
The use of firewood in this computer age has dire consequences on our eco-system, despite its contribution to deforestation, the health, fire and insanitary consequences are better avoided. Even more worrisome is the report that Nigeria, with four refineries, now imports Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for its domestic market.
The Tide thinks that importing petrol for local consumption is bad enough for a country that boasts of four  refineries with nameplate capacity of over 450,000 barrels per day and abundant petroleum resources. But to also import gas which we have in abundance, is to say the least, a national embarrassment.
At a time when we expect all critical sectors of the economy to be active, especially the oil and gas sector, nothing short of the best is acceptable in this era of transformation.
The Tide believes that it is high time our four refineries were revamped to attain, at least, 90 per cent capacity utilisation, rather than hovering between 25 and 35 per cent as reported in some quarters.
Successive dispensations have strived to actualise the Turn-Around-Maintenance (TAM) profile of these refineries in the past, but to no avail, and we think that Jonathan’s Presidency can make the difference if indications from his re-structuring of the energy/petroleum sector are anything to go by.
The promise to bring the original builders of the refineries to do the TAM project should be pursued religiously and not allowed to suffer. This is more so because other contractors who have tried to put these refineries back on stream have failed the nation.
With the number of gas facilities in Nigeria, even the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), and the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC), there should be a way of providing sufficient gas locally. Anything less is to open the way to another national scandal and corruption akin to the importation of petrol.
In fact, it is more encouraging now that the private sector, like the Dangote Group, has also ventured into the petroleum refinery business, with its target of refining over 400,000 barrels per day.
We earnestly pray that Dangote and the likes involved in refining business should be given everymaximum support and co-operation to ensure that Nigeria is self sufficient in gas production. In advanced societies, the Dangote example is usually replicated by others in the private sector while the government only serves as the regulatory platform to ensure strict compliance to standards.
Nigerians feel ashamed that the country spends about N1.3 trillion annually, about 22 per cent of its budget to subsidise the cost of importing refined petroleum products, gas importation should not add to this national disgrace.