A Critical Evaluation of the Environmental Impact of Gas Flaring by Oil Companies Operating in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Gas flaring is one of the associated activities of the oils and gas industry, which poses negative impacts on the environment such as climate change, impact on health and economic loss. The Nigerian government has tried putting a stop to gas flaring but to no avail, there is a continuous flaring of gas by oil companies operating in the Niger delta.  This research answers the question of the volume gas flared by Oil Company and also the increased or decreased volume flared.

The research focused on the research gap identified from the oil and gas sector complying with the Kyoto protocol project (an international agreement linked to the united natio9ns framework on climate change) reduced carbon emissions in the environment. The research aim was to evaluate the environmental impact of gas flaring by oil companies operating in the Niger delta and the study comprises three objectives: - (1) To evaluate and compare the volume of gas flared between two periods (2002 – 2006 and 2007 – 2011) based on accessible data from the oil companies operating in the Niger delta. (2) To analyse the statistical significance of gas flared by selected oil companies over a period of time (2002 – 2011) in the Niger delta. (3) To recommend a suitable model of monitoring and regulating system of gas flaring from the translation of best practices in developed countries that can suit the Niger delta were obtained from “NNPC ASB 2011”.

T test and ANOVA were used to analyse the objectives 1&2 respectively. The findings revealed a slight reduction in volume of gas flared from 2006 – 2011 when compare with 2002 – 2006 while objective 2 revealed that some companies are highly noncompliant to Kyoto protocol in  mscf and % gas flared. Based on a series of unaccomplished strategies put in place by the Nigerian government to reduce gas flaring, the study concludes that gas flaring reduction objectives can only be achieved by both government and oil and gas companies by measuring and monitoring the volume of emissions.