Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Shell Halves Nigerian Gas Flaring With New Units Through 2010

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-19/shell-halves-nigerian-gas-flaring-with-new-units-through-2010.html

By Eduard Gismatullin

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, operator of Nigeria’s largest oil fields, halved gas flaring in the African country between 2002 and 2010 after installing gathering infrastructure.

Associated gas flaring, or burning off the fuel pumped together with crude oil production, declined to less than 300 million cubic feet a day down from about 600 million feet a day over the eight-year period, Shell said on its website. Worldwide, the company increased flaring by 32 percent in 2010 from a year earlier on higher output in Nigeria and the start of a project in Iraq, it said in its Sustainability Report.

“Around 80 percent of this continuous flaring takes place in Nigeria where the security situation and a lack of funding from the government partner has previously slowed progress on projects to capture the associated gas,” Shell said. “Flaring in Iraq will rise in future years as production increases and before equipment to capture the associated gas can be installed.”

The Hague-based Shell and partners are investing about $2 billion to end flaring in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, in addition to $3 billion spent on the project since 2002.

--Editors: Alex Devine, Will Kennedy

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

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