Abuja—Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has revealed that Nigeria accidentally discovered 206 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves while in search of crude oil.
Mangrovepen.ng gathered that Chief Sylva made this known at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) forum in Abuja.
According to him: “We’ve a lot of gas in this country. We have 206 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.
“This number is already discovered in gas reserves and this 206 trillion cubic feet reserve was found while looking for oil, so it was accidentally discovered.
“We were actually going to look for crude oil and we found gas, and in that process of accidentally finding gas, we have found up to 206 tcf.
“So, the belief is that if we really aim to look for gas dedicatedly, we will find up to 600 trillion cubic meters of gas,” he said.
He also revealed that the nation’s transition to renewable energy will be done in bits after the utilization of all benefits associated with gas.
“Western countries are in a position to move to renewables after using coal and crude oil to stabilise the electricity in their areas and everybody there enjoys it.
“But we have a situation in Nigeria where a lot of people do not have access to electricity yet.
“So, what we are saying is that we agree to transit but let us use our gas first to develop our country and get the benefits of development, that point where everybody has electricity, then we can transit to renewable fuel,” Sylva explained.
