By Ismail Auwal
The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva disclosed that Nigeria’s plan to commercialize gas burned from its oil fields is nearing completion.
Sylva while disclosing this is in a meeting with the United State climate’ envoy John Kerry, said the commercialisation will help cut 15 million tons of carbon emissions from the atmosphere.
The Minister told reporters after a meeting with Kerry in Abuja that there was “some moral basis” for Nigeria to get funding from rich nations to meet its climate change goals.
“We are trying to bring down gas flaring. Gas flaring commercialisation programme is at an advanced stage, which is going to take out about 15 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, which is one of our biggest contributions to global gas emissions,” said Timipre.
Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria is also the continent’s major oil producer. The West African nation has been trying to harness gas belching from its oil fields so it can be exported or used to generate power but has been hobbled by lack of finance.
