The recent unequivocal commitment shown by Nigeria present government on gas driven economic development has been seen as a good approach in monetization of the nation abundant natural gas reserves. This latest assurance is coming from the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari in an interactive section with the media.

 Mallam Kyari is his media disclosure said that the corporation has commenced discussion on the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG Train 8 with its partners as to the country’s further commitment to gas driven economy..

According to Kyari, Train 8 is the federal government’s effort at establishing gas hubs that would lead to the creation of other LNG projects noting that the NLNG shareholders had signed the Final Investment Decision, FID for Train 7 in December 2019

He said: “And because the PIB itself will ultimately come to pass where emphasis on gas, monetizing gas, and creating the right fiscal environment for gas development will lead to some more LNG projects.

“But more quickly, as we have done FID on Train 7, we have already started speaking to our partners to go to train 8. And indeed, Mr. President’s question was that he was surprised that we are still on train 7″.

“He thought we should be talking about Train 8, and I agree with him absolutely because there was enormous room for us to improve.

“But it’s not the number of train that is significant; it’s the volume of production that is important. For instance, Train 7 is adding almost close to what the current trains are doing”.

“We will do this, we will push because this is the easy one and supply the gas and expand it, and of course, we are going to get more and more benefit”.

Mallam Mele Kyri further stressed the fact that  having more LNG facilities would create “more jobs, more employment, more expansion of the economy. We agree with this and we are also chasing that appropriately.”

NLNG operates a liquefaction complex comprising six complete liquefaction trains and associated facilities with a capacity of 22 million tons per annum (mtpa). But less than two decades after the Nigeria first LNG was commissioned, Nigeria has become among the top five global producers of LNG. Accounting 7% of the global LNG Trade behind Qatar, Australia, Malaysia and USA while other gas producers like Congo, Gabon etc

The NLNG shareholders are comprised of :  the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the NNPC which is holding 49 per cent shares; Shell Gas B.V. –25.6 percent; Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France–15 percent; and Eni International N.A. N.V. S.àr.l –10.4 percent.