By Adedapo Adesanya
NIGUS International, a Nigerian firm, has signed a $1 billion agreement with a Chinese firm, Beijing Zhogmin Xinjunlong New Energy Technology Company Limited, to fund and develop gas flaring solutions for Nigeria.
According to reports, the pact signing, held on Friday in Abuja, was in light of the directive of President Bola Tinubu to help end gas flaring and introduce Nigeria into the world of Green Sustainable Energy Production.
Speaking at the agreement signing, Mr Malik Ado Ibrahim, the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of NIGUS, said the partnership with the Chinese company was aimed at imbibing its new state-of-the-art technology profile to convert flared gas for commercial use.
He said the new technology would create Gas-to-Liquid (GTL), synthetic diesel to galvanise energy mix, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for export, and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (cooking gas), among others.
The GTL technology is a process that converts natural gas, the cleanest burning fossil fuel to high-quality liquid fuels such as gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel,
“The joint venture is about NIGUS, as a renewable energy company, joining forces with the technology that allows us to bring clean climate economy to Nigeria and create value from what we are wasting at the moment to generate lower pricing energy.
“We seem not to be contributing to the carbon footprint, we flare a lot of our gas, 90 per cent of what we produce in Nigeria is being flared, not utilising the gas.
“We are bringing to play a very modern, state-of-the-art technology by joining forces with China to create wealth and carbon neutrality and then generate lower-price energy.
“The project is to demonstrate the president’s wish to utilise flared gas, this technology will put his wishes into action.
“The GTL will allow us to turn the gas into liquid, to create LNG, the paradigm shift is that we will be able to imbed the technology where is needed rather than adding infrastructural cost,” he said, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He explained that the packaging would be beneficial to Nigeria in terms of job creation for economic growth and development.
“If Nigeria is able to push this technology, we can get some global green funds, we expect that our carbon footprint and neutrality profile will allow the joint ventures to assess the kind of funds Mr President put available for Nigeria,” he said.
On his part, Mr Yung Ruming, the Chief Executive Officer, Beijing Zhogmin Xinjunlong New Energy Technology Company Limited, while expressing readiness for the partnership, said his company’s technical team and equipment would be deployed to actualise the project.
Dipo Olowookere