Nigeria’s proven gas reserve hits 203.16tcf
………..crude oil reserves now 36.89billion barrels
By Abisola THOMPSON
Nigeria has announced that its proven natural gas reserve is now 203.16trillion cubic feet (tcf) while crude oil reserve is now 36.89billion barrels (bb) as at January 1, 2020.
Speaking during a media interactive session on Tuesday, Director of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Engr. Sarki Auwalu, said the department has set new targets of 210tcf by 2025 and 220tcf by 2030.
Latest reserves represented a marginal increase of 1.16tcf in proven natural gas reserves representing 0.57 percentage increase from previous 202tcf while crude oil reserves declined by 82million barrels representing 0.22 percentage decrease from 36.97billion barrels to 36.89 billion barrels.
However, Nigeria’s commitment to achieve 40 billion barrels crude oil reserves by 2020 may be a tall order considering the fact that the country has launched marginal field bid rounds for 57 marginal fields and the process to first drilling may take up to 60 months.
The DPR has set out a number of steps for bidders, with fees payable at various points. A registration fee of N500,000 ($1,290) is the first payment, a N2million ($5,200) application fee per field, a N3million ($7,800) bid processing fee per field, a data prying fee of N5,750,000 ($15,000) per field, a data leasing fee of N10millionm ($25,000) per field, a competent persons report fee of N20million ($50,000) per field and a field specific report of N10million ($25,000) per field.
The last marginal bid rounds were undertaken in 2003. The present bid rounds will be done electronically.
The DPR boss also stated that there has been stable profile of gas flare volume between 2017 and 2019 which stands at about 300billion cubic feet (bcf) per annum.
