The image that you can see from a satellite or an aeroplane flying over Nigeria at night is of the large amounts of light distributed mainly around the oil centres. This light is caused by the flaring of gas from the oil centres. At the recent Kyoto Conference between the countries adhering to the convention, it was agreed to limit the gaseous emissions of noxious substances to the atmosphere in order to reduce the "greenhouse effect" on the environment. One way of achieving this is to use taxation of the parties who are considered as a source of this pollution. ENI AGIP Division is very sensitive to such problems and has agreed with the Nigerian Authorities to implement a policy of minimising as much as possible the flaring of gas from the oil centres by the year 2008. Agip Engineering Department is developing the engineering activities to utilise this surplus gas for an economic advantage by selling it wherever possible. The different gases from the oil and gas condensate fields is separated at various flow stations located in two main areas, the land and the swamp. The first use of the gas is utilisation for oil recovery by gas injection and this comprises 20% of the total gas amount. 5% of the gas is used for power generation for the facilities at the flow stations. The remaining 75% is planned to be sold in different ways:
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Power Generation20%
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NGL10%
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LNG45%
This is a case history where the taxation of flared gas (costs) is changed to profit (remuneration) by means of profitable projects with notable IRR.
