President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria has moved a step closer to the nation’s dream of full utilisation of the nation’s abundant gas potentials.

Speaking Tuesday at the commissioning of the Integrated Gas Handling Facility and LPG Processing and Dispensing Plants built and operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, an Upstream Subsidiary of NNPC in Oredo, Edo State, President Buhari said the Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility and its associated NGLs depot will be delivering 240,000 metric tons of commercial-grade Liquefied Petroleum Gas and Propane. 

He said the plant will also deliver about 205 million standard cubic feet per day of lean gas to the domestic market.

The President remarked that the project was a follow-up to the commitment of the administration towards making the Year 2020 as Nigeria’s Year of the Gas

The President noted that “It was indeed not a coincidence that the completion and commissioning of the aforementioned gas infrastructure projects in this Year 2020 followed the wrap-up of the Year 2019 with the Final Investment Decision (FID) for NLNG Train 7 as the country is exiting the Year 2020 with yet another milestone of commissioning the Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility LPG Processing and Dispensing Plants which will also support the on-going drive towards providing alternative auto fuel under the National Gas Expansion Program initiative.

In his remarks, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, noted that the project highlights the commitment of NNPC in eliminating gas flares while increasing Nigeria’s value realisation from gas.

He added that the entire LPG and propane production is “targeted at the Nigerian market, further affirming the conscious efforts of NNPC and the Nigerian government in growing its participation in the LPG value chain to boost domestic supply, lower prices and deepen LPG penetration to safeguard the environment.

The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, said the President’s clear directives to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC were that they must deepen domestic gas utilisation and monetisation and provide a platform where Nigerians can benefit from the enormous gas supplies that it has, so that job and prosperity can be created and by implication, bring peace to the country.

He added that “the facility was designed, constructed and delivered with the highest application of Nigerian content and the contractor is a wholly Nigerian company which demonstrated the capacity of Nigerian companies to handle ‘complex’ projects.