Re: Flared gas can generate 100,000MW of electricity – Expert

What a profound discovery. Or is it? 

When last did anyone speak to Engr Charles Osezua? Fresh out of Gaslink (then not yet a fully owned subsidiary of Oando), Osezua was one of the so-called Aret Adams Boys, breaking out in new directions. 

His company Linkso had articulated a masterstroke of a plan to harvest flared gas which unknown to the elite and the man in the street alike, contains a whole homologous series of stuff. Condensates (some call it naphta), the propane and butane fractions that make up LPG and the most volatile fraction, natural gas. 

We will recall that for 40years or more there has been a law, regulation or requirement (take your pick) for the oil producing companies to reduce and/or eliminate gas flaring in the Niger Delta. This is for a whole variety of reasons, the least of which was economic since we were swimming in unprecedented oil derived wealth. The other reason was environmental awareness of the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming etc. 

In the runup to the Rio Conference, the then head of the World Environmental Organisation, Dr Maurice Strong, visited Nigeria with well publicised public events. What did Nigeria take out of this? Believe it or not, we turned away from tackling the several hundred million tons of CO2 dumped relentlessly into the atmosphere by gas flaring. Nigeria was conned instead into banning the use of certain chloro-fluoro-carbons (CFCs) used as refrigirants in our still underdeveloped refrigeration industry. On a basic level it was a correct scientific decision. However it is comparable to the story of the old woman whose house was on fire. She rushed in to salvage something only to come out with a broom! This is a true story. It happened in the late 50s in Enugu, and I was about 10years old. 

On a more serious note, and taking into consideration the ozone depletion equivalent weights, the impact of all the CFCs used and lawfully or unlawfully discharged into the atmosphere is less than one tenth of one percent of that due to unbridled gas flaring. It is clear where the emphasis should have been.  

Now comes Linkso Limited. There is this understanding, (and I must confess that I have not read the relevant document), that declares all flared gas to be FREE AT THE FLARE. This means that any person, group or organisation can develop any commercial proposition utilising otherwise flared gas without paying even one kobo to the owner of the facility, otherwise rightly called THE GUILTY PARTY. That was exactly what Linkso wanted to do, starting somewhere in Izombe near the boundary of Imo and Rivers states. Sadly it has taken more than 15years and I am still unsure whether the pioneer facility is now on stream. The approval process has been a real nightmare. 

If the Linkso model had succeeded in a timely manner, we would have had by now several clones or copycats. The LPG processing industry would have been truly domesticated such that we can leave NLNG Ltd, Oso Condensate Facility and others alone to their own devices. 

Most Nigerians are unaware that these giant operations produce more than 3million tons of LPG equivalents per annum, until recently 100percent exported. And we don't have gas for our wives, hotels and restaurants. Our stunted annual demand is somewhere around 200,000tonnes. The story of the cock and bull account by NLNG and others that it is rocket science converting from cryogenic storage to pressurised (<3bar!) ambient temperature storage is better left for a year2 mechanical engineering class. 

Finally the Natural Gas fraction in each cluster described above will be the catalyst for industrial, domestic and most importantly widely Distributed Power Generation, (Barr Iseoluwa Abiodun-Johnson)

Hence any EXPERT informing us about the huge quantum of power we can generate from currently flared gas is not stating anything profound. This ROAD NOT TAKEN has been analysed adequately. This is time for action. 

Note that I have deliberately avoided any reference to the development of non-associated gas. Truly most people who routinely agonise and ask "Why do they complain not having gas at the power plants? We know that they flare so much gas!" cannot handle all that on the same plate.