Nigeria produces almost two million barrels of oil a day from its oil fields in the Niger Delta area. Most of the oil comes from reservoirs containing gas, which is produced with the oil. This associated gas is separated from the oil at flowstations and more than 95 per cent of it is flared currently a total of some two billion standard cubic feet per day (scf/d), which is estimated to be about a quarter of the gas the world flares and vents.
However, simply substituting gas from the flares for these small commercial volumes of non-associated gas cannot solve Nigerias flaring problem. Todays commercial demand for gas in Nigeria is just 330 million scf/d, many times smaller than the large volumes of associated gas being flared.