A 12-year study by the World Bank using new technology has found that African countries flare enough gas each year — 40-billion cubic metres (BCM) — to power half the continent’s electricity needs if put to productive use. Just one country, Nigeria, flares 23 BCM annually.
Flaring is the practice of burning off the by-product of natural gas, which is often associated with extracting oil from the ground.
Where there is a lack of gas infrastructure or a nearby market the gas is either vented or flared.
Gas flaring contributes to global warming (about 400-million tons of carbon dioxide was flared last year) and is a huge waste of energy, the World Bank study says. If the gas had been sold in the United States instead of flared the market value of the gas would have been about $40-billion.
Using satellite data, the World Bank found that in 2006 oil-producing countries and companies burned about 170 BCM of natural gas worldwide, equivalent to 27% of US natural gas consumption, or 5,5% of total global production of natural gas.
“Gas flaring not only harms the environment by contributing to global warming, but is a huge waste of a cleaner source of energy that could be used to generate much-needed electricity in poor countries around the world,” said the World Bank’s Brent Svensson.
Nigeria is only the second-worst culprit in flaring. It is far eclipsed by Russia, which flared nearly twice as much gas as Nigeria did.
Nigeria flares 23 BCM annually compared with Russia’s 50,7 BCM, the study says.
Other countries that make a significant contribution to gas flaring are Iran (11,4 BCM), Iraq (8,1), Kazakhstan (5,8), Algeria (5,5), Angola (5,2), Libya (4,2), Qatar (3,2) and Saudi Arabia (3).
While gas flaring has remained more or less constant during the review period and 15 countries reduced the quantity of gas they flared, 22 countries — South Africa included — increased the amount.
The use of satellite imaging to determine gas-flaring levels represents a significant advance from the previous approach, which relied on official data. This data, in Russia’s case, under-reported its gas-flaring activities.
The World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) partnership includes a number of countries, organisations and companies that have signed up to reduce flaring.
Twelve countries are included in the initiative, including Russia and Nigeria, the worst offenders. South Africa is not a partner in the programme.
The Department of Minerals and Energy’s Nhlanhla Gumede says South Africa subscribes to and is an active participant in an initiative called “methane to market”, which focuses on the capture and use of methane.
“Unlike our other African brothers, who produce methane as an associated gas during oil recovery, our methane is associated with coal. We have started in earnest on a programme of capturing this gas before coal mining and taking it to market,” says Gumede.
He says there are two related challenges in South Africa in capturing this gas — the lack of an established gas market and the lack of gas infrastructure. “Government is trying to establish a gas market through actions like stating an intention to introduce gas-fired power stations and the promotion of gas-to-liquid technologies. The process of establishing a market will take time and serious effort from all role players.”
Gumede says the country needs to establish a network of gas pipelines which links the source of gas with the market. “PetroSA is seriously investigating ways of developing this infrastructure. Unfortunately building gas infrastructure is not very different from building a road network. One is talking about long-term investments [40 years] with utility returns.
“The biggest challenge is that one builds this infrastructure not knowing whether the gas will be mineable or even enough to justify such long-term investments.”
Gumede said plans are under way to establish a Coal Bed Methane (CBM) market. A drilling programme aimed at quantifying CBM resources has commenced in the Welkom area.