Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell has significantly reduced flaring at its Niger Delta fields in Nigeria, which account for 40% of such emissions on the African continent, writes Amanda Battersby.

However, Shell still has a way to go to reach its goal of no routine flaring by 2030 in line with the World Bank’s initiative.

Projects in Nigeria, Iraq, Malaysia and Qatar accounted for more than 70% of Shell’s total routine flaring in 2016, which at 7.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was down 4.2 million tonnes on the previous year, thanks to new facilities brought into operation in Iraq and Malaysia.

The flaring of associated gas at the Gumusut and Kikeh fields off Malaysia has now been eliminated thanks to a system that injects gas back into the reservoir.

“[Meanwhile], work continues to bring additional gas gathering facilities on line in Iraq and Nigeria to reach our goal of no routine flaring by 2030, while continuous improvement efforts will reduce operational flaring,” said the operator.

Shell Iraq Petroleum Development started up operations at the second phase of a gas-gathering system at Majnoon in Iraq that captured around 65% of the gas that would have otherwise been flared in 2016.

In Nigeria, flaring from Shell Petroleum Development Company’s (SPDC) joint venture facilities fell by more than 90% between 2002 and 2016. Flaring from SPDC facilities decreased further in 2016, mainly due to production outages as well as operational improvements. Progress was also made on several gas gathering projects.

‘However, the planned start-up dates for two major gas-gathering projects continue to be delayed by security issues and a lack of adequate joint venture funding from our government partner,” said Shell.

Nigerian government officials reckon that flaring today still causes annual losses of $2.5 billion and a bill has been tabled to outlaw flaring in the country.

Sources point to the ridiculously low suggested fine of 10 naira (less than three US cents) for flaring, under almost 40-year old legislation, as one reason why the issue has never really been tackled.

“Gas flaring is as old as the discovery of crude oil in Nigeria. While it remains a global environmental malaise with attendant environmental consequences, we must move with the rest of the world to seriously put an end to it. Gas flaring is not inevitable.

"While statistics may not be accurate, the quantity of gas flared in Nigeria exceeds over 40% the gas flared annually across Africa, which amounts to about $7 billion in waste,” a Nigerian senator told news portal Vanguard.

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State-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) painted a rosier picture, claiming that it had reduced flaring from 36% in 2006 to 10% a decade later and this had pushed Nigeria down to seventh position on the global flaring scale from second.

NNPC official Mallam Bello Rabiu said the drastic reduction in flaring was achieved through “aggressive gas commercialisation anchored on the Gas Master Plan”.

He added that the government had designed a National Gas Policy that seeks to end flaring by 2020.

Rabiu noted that the federal government has provided a guarantee of payment to gas suppliers through the Central Bank of Nigeria and the World Bank as part of incentives to get the oil and gas companies to commercialise more of their gas.

“This is a very important step that the NNPC has been working on since 2008”, he said.

Academic sources claim that scientists studying the environmental impact of gas flaring in the Niger Delta are hampered by the lack of available official flaring emissions data although it is widely believed that flaring is a major contributor to air pollution in the region.

Test modelling showed that a significant reduction in pollution could be brought about by stopping flaring at a few key projects and by improving flaring efficiency.