As Nigeria grapples with economic, environmental, and social costs of gas flaring despite its status as one of Africa’s top producers of natural gas, recent data have revealed that in 2024 alone, the country flared natural gas valued at $1.05 billion, equivalent to electricity generation potential of 30.1 thousand GigaWatt hours — enough to drastically reduce the nation’s chronic power shortages.
The penalties associated with gas flaring, estimated at $602 million, remain largely unenforced, raising concerns about regulatory weakness and ineffective oversight.
The Federal Government has introduced several policies, including the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the Gas Flaring, Venting & Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations, 2023 to tackle the menace.
Additionally, the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Project (NGFCP) was launched as a market-based solution to allocate flared gas to third-party investors for industrial and power sector use. Yet, implementation challenges have stifled progress.
In an exclusive interview on the issue, Dr. Saheed Abudu, a researcher and lawyer specialising in Energy and Natural Resources Law and International Investment Law, and former researcher at the Tulane Centre for Energy Law, described gas flaring as a symptom of the country’s regulatory inertia.
“If Nigeria is to truly end this wasteful practice, it must look beyond its borders, and learn from the successful blueprints of other oil and gas power houses. The framework of the NGFCP is theoretically sound, but without strong enforcement and political determination, it risks becoming another unfulfilled policy,” Abudu said.
He noted that the persistent lack of political will, overreliance on International Oil Companies (IOCs), and repeated shifting of flare-out deadlines undermine the nation’s credibility.
“The continuous revisions of flare-out deadlines – from 2025 now extended to 2030 – together with the reluctance of producers to pay fines underscore a regulatory environment that has failed to hold operators accountable,” he emphasised.
Abudu further highlighted deep-rooted institutional problems, stating: “Significant bottlenecks persist; including administrative delays, overlapping regulatory mandates, and above all, resistance from producers who see flare gas utilisation as disruptive to their core oil operations. Inadequate infrastructure for gas gathering and distribution compounds the problem, making many flare sites commercially unviable without massive upfront investments.”
Drawing comparisons with other resource-rich nations, Abudu argued that Nigeria must adopt proven strategies.
He explained that Norway adopted a top-down approach where no gas utilisation plan meant no project approval, and combined this with a stringent carbon tax that forced companies to innovate and invest in capture technologies.
Saudi Arabia, through its state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco, according to him, pursued a national strategy that treated gas as a resource, not waste.
