Power to the people

As LNG growth plans fade, improving the domestic market is the priority for Nigeria to make use of its abundant gas reserves

Nigeria’s efforts to exploit its huge gas reserves, both for export and to improve the local economy, have been underwhelming. The new government of President Mohammed Buhari has a chance to change this, as long as performance matches the rhetoric. The country has around 185 trillion cubic feet of gas resources, the world’s seventh-largest trove, but only produces around 4.5bn cf/d of sales gas (excluding flared gas, which accounts for well over a third of total gas produced). Most of that sales gas, or about 3.5bn cf/d, goes for export to Nigeria’s only liquefied natural gas plant, the six-train, 22m-tonnes-a-year NLNG project, which runs at full capacity.Nigeria once had bigger plans for L