In line with international best practices, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke has revealed that Nigeria will reduce gas flaring to 2 percent from the current 11 percent by 2014.

“The intention of government through our gas industrialization programme and other measures put in place is to ensure that gas flare is reduced to 2 percent in 2014, in order to meet international best practice,” the Minister explained at the Nigeria Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to her, Nigeria has been able has already succeeded in reducing gas flaring to less than 11 percent compared to 30 percent in 2010.

Alison-Madueke stated that the oil and gas industry has played a critical role in improving the country’s economy, while the Federal Government remained committed to transforming the sector towards achieving international best standards.

She added that the oil and gas sector had witnessed a renewed way of performance level in the last three years under the present administration, thereby placing the industry on a higher pedestal.

According to her, over the last 12 months, the upstream sub-sector maintained a production of 2.4 million barrels per day, as well as increased gas production from 6.3 billion standard cubic feet per day in 2012 to 7.8 billion Standard Cubic Feet (SCF).

She said the decision to boost the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), to medium-sized oil and Gas Company over the last two years has yielded good result.

The petroleum Minister affirmed that through the support given to NPDC in the last two years; production capacity has increased from 50,000 barrel of crude oil per from day to 140,000 barrel per day (bpd) in 2012.

This means production would increase over the next two years, she said.

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