ABUJA: Nigeria’s earnings from the petroleum industry continue to be hard-hit as the United States (U.S.) Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) import from Africa’s most populous country fell from 20.3 million cubic feet in June 2007 to zero as of February this year.
And the quest to boost revenue in the search for oil in the Chad basin is being hobbled by the activities of insurgents in the Northeastern part of the country, according to the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 Nigerian companies and chief executive officers are attending the Offshore Technology Conference (OtC) in Houston, United States. Also, (NNPC) has expressed its readiness to take practical steps towards ensuring low carbon emissions in its operations in line with the global Paris agreement of December 2015.
The U.S. LNG import started dropping since 2008 when it fell to an average of 3.1 million cubic feet. The situation became worse in 2011 when Washington imported only 2.3 million cubic feet before falling totally to zero level. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which made this disclosure yesterday in a statement, said it now gets majority of LNG from Mexico, Canada and Trinidad.
The EIA said in a statement yesterday that its natural gas net imports fell to 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfpd) in 2015, continuing a decline that began in 2007, when net imports of natural gas exceeded 10 Bcfpd.
According to EIA, while both U.S. natural gas consumption and production have increased in recent years, natural gas production has grown slightly faster, resulting in a decline in net imports. Increasing domestic production of natural gas has reduced U.S. reliance on imported natural gas and kept U.S. natural gas prices relatively low.
