 You're welcome back to the breakfast and plus TV Africa and we now have our guest the public affairs analyst Mr Nick Agouli joining us. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me all right this morning We're talking about the price of cooking gas in Nigeria. It's reason in the past few months and Reading a few articles online the news and the one you've personally noted yourself We can see the impact of gas flaring and Impotation and all of this and please let's have your commentary on the rise of cooking gas in the country Thank you very much for that question. I have worked in the oil industry for 25 years mostly for international oil and gas companies part of that in Nigeria and I never in my imagination thought that Nigeria was importing gas I Maybe I didn't give a thought to it. Maybe I thought it was an impossibility I probably was living in the Nair or I was just dreaming that this was not going to be Because Nigeria is producing a flaring gas So I thought that all of the gas That is being used in Nigeria It's actually From our oil wise in the Niger Delta I saw like you really said this news now broke to say that Nigeria is importing gas and heater to the federal Inland Revenue Service Was not living VAT as value at the tax on the imported gas But then they changed their minds and decided to apply VAT on the imported gas and because of that The price of cooking gas almost doubled in the market Since I became aware that Nigeria is importing gas. I have not be myself I have not be myself because I Can understand the story with Petro We at least Say crude oil make money before we import Petro But in gas We are actually flaring what we are producing reducing it to zero value and Then we look for money elsewhere To go and import a commodity that we have been blessed with that we are taking our pains to produce And then flaring it doesn't make sense at all I think I go there. Why why is my drug? Yeah, why is my drug flaring us? Okay, so let me just take a step back and And just say this in a lemur's way When you Dree an oil wire You always get three things come out of that one You will get oil You will get gas And you will get water Collectively These three things are called hydrocarbons. That's the word hydrocarbons now in Nigeria situation the oil companies Dree for oil And when these three things come out They dispose of the water after treating it they take the oil and sell and Then for reasons that are best known to them They play the gas as if gas has no use Meanwhile as we speak today Gas is the biggest source of electricity generation the world over And now you have a country That is taking pains Monies thinking in technology to produce this commodity That should be used for electricity generation And the sex this commodity on fire Meanwhile the country is largely in darkness Nigeria is One of the countries that is the most on electrified in the whole world So if you ask me why are these oil companies flaring gas? I will simply tell you I don't know because They could harness that gas and indeed they do harness the gas if you ask the oil companies because as a sector I worked in they harness part of the gas What do they use it for they use part of the gas they harness to generate Electricity for their own oil installations So if you go to the Niger data where you have the oil installations the electricity That they are using is not from the public power supply It is the gas That they are producing are they used for that they also use that gas for what we call Gas lift which is they re-inject the gas into the world to bring up more oil So that they make use of the gas that for for their own benefits But for some extremely inexplicable reasons They flare the gas that they could have harnessed into electricity Into cooking gas and into other uses, but I lay the blame I lay the blame for this squarely on the feet of the government and the government of Nigeria is Being led as I speak today by President Muhammad Ubu Harry There is no government in the world that we allow this kind of thing to happen In my time working for International oil companies I have traveled to more than 40 countries in the world working for these companies There is no country in the world that is allowing the oil companies do what they are doing in Nigeria and The government is Sitting down Looking at this and doing nothing about it And so if I want to answer your question in summary I said the oil companies are flaring gas because the Nigerian government has let them do it Okay, Mr. Agoule, we know that gas flaring has been illegal in Nigeria since the 1980s Yet the country still ranks among the top 10 gas flare countries And I wanted to talk about the loss that we've incurred, you know from flaring gas First of all the Minister of State for Petroleum Mr. Silver went ahead to say Petroleum resources said that Nigeria fled about 3 billion cubic metric Of meters of natural gas and that's just in the first five months of the year 2020 and that this gas that we fled was valued at 230 million dollars Let me answer your question in two parts. Before I answer your question, let me say that Gas flaring is not illegal in Nigeria. I wish it was but it is not You mean the petroleum industry Sorry, I said you mean practically Yes, because something is illegal If the government makes a law and says if you do it, we are going to prosecute you But what the Nigerian government has done Since the discovery of oil in Nigeria is they levy penalties on the oil companies if they flared gas and The oil companies have preferred to pay the penalties and flared gas Instead of lessing that gas for electricity generation So the government hasn't declared gas flaring as As illegal it is a position that I even can vast When the petroleum industry be was passed and I noticed that in the bill the government has team maintained Penalties for gas flaring in my recommendations. I said the National Assembly needs to Needs to amend the petroleum industry be which is an art now but criminalizing gas flaring So that if the oil companies flared gas the executives are head to account and prosecuted for that Possibly their licenses are withdrawn Because if you are a father, you cannot watch somebody working for you burning away the food Burning away food when your children have no food Nigeria don't have electricity There are many Nigerians today who work with electricity in their homes or businesses and the commodity that generates electricity Is being flared away and wasted and not just that Costing environmental damage as we can see in the videos that you are showing you see that flare stack Where the gas is flaring look at the tick black smoke that is coming from there That is going into the noses of Nigerians. They are taking it into their systems The environment is being damaged. We are losing money and we don't have electricity that you kick start our economy Nigeria's economy needs 200,000 megawatts of electricity And the economy is being given 4,000 megawatts of electricity Yet, this is a country that is one of the world's top most producers of gas In fact, we are a gas nation With some bit of crude oil So look at that. Just look at that video. Look at that environmental damage. And this thing is happening 24-7 at different sites all over the Niger Delta The government is Yes, just go ahead wrap up so I can you know bring in the other things go ahead Okay, fine. Okay, so if the government is interested in solving this problem if we only require 30 minutes of President Muhammad Buhari's time 30 minutes if the president invests 30 minutes of his time He talks the Minister of State for Petroleum to sum up a meeting of all the oil companies operating in Nigeria in the villa the president steps into that meeting and he asks the CEOs of these companies The reason for why they are flaring Nigeria's gas when Nigeria does not have electricity When Nigeria is importing the same gas importing as far as the United States the gas that they are flaring and The president will read the riot acts to these oil companies and say go back If you produce gas you must harness it and Use it for our economy if you cannot harness that gas Don't produce and the oil companies will use their money They will use their expertise. They will use their technology to harness the gas because they are interested in producing crude oil All right, so 30 minutes of President Muhammad Buhari's time We saw gas flaring problem in Nigeria increase our electricity generation Make cooking gas readily available. In fact before I even step away From this question. I want to say that in a place like the United Kingdom where I live Gas is not sold in cylinders like you are showing on your screen Gas is piped directly to every home. Yeah That's what I was going to ask next, you know, if Nigeria has the infrastructure to actually Produce and you know make use of its natural gas resources And now that we're talking about a 12 Kilogram cylinder, you know selling for as high as six or seven thousand or maybe even more It's about 500 Naira or 550 Naira per kilogram currently What would you expect should be the price of gas in Nigeria if we were truly able to do things better? Thank you very much for that question. The question is in two parts. So I'll take the infrastructure one. Yes As we speak today as we speak today Nigeria does not have the infrastructure to harness all the gas that is being produced in Nigeria But that infrastructure can be put in place That is exactly what we're talking about If the president invests 30 minutes of his time and raise the riots at raise the riot act to the oil companies and say Once you produce gas you either harness it or you don't produce anything at all is the oil companies that will put that infrastructure in place for every oil well For every flow station for every terminal They are going to put infrastructure in place to harness the gas and use it Nigeria will be the better for it Even if it costs Money to do that. It is better. We have electricity This economy that we have is never going to do well Unless we give it electricity Electricity is the life wire of the economy and economy that needs 200,000 megawatts of electricity being given for thousand We never do well. It doesn't matter who is the manager. You can bring angels from heaven They can never move this economy forward because you are trying to take off an aircraft with a few Now I will say that You are saying once you be the at the cost of cooking gas in Nigeria I will say that people for for that 12 and a half cylinder kg cylinder that we're talking about Nigeria should pay as low as 1000 naira for it 1000 naira We have this commodity we're flaring it So instead of flaring it even if you get 1000 from it, is it not going to be better for you? Because when you flare it you get zero zero value Okay, so why not harness it and spell it to Nigeria for cheap So, Mr. Agule, what then has been the role and what should be the role of the nigeria liquefied natural gas company? The NLNG in all this Okay, so let me let me take one step back and explain a bit of Some some technicalities in the oil industry We have what we call natural gas and we have what we call petroleum gas in oil industry parlance will call the natural gas as All associated gas Why the petroleum gas is associated gas? Meaning the natural gas is that you actually explore and drill a web to produce gas It's only gas you are producing Now the NLNG was set up by the federal government to actually produce gas and export it The gas that NLNG is producing is for export It's only recently they started putting some gas into the domestic market. They were holding for expo So they actually sink gas wells the oil company sink gas wells produce natural gas for them Which they liquefy and export The petroleum gas is the one that will come with oil when you sink a crude oil well And that oil and that where is producing crude oil gas is going to come with it That is why it's called associated gas is associated with crude oil And that is the one that you take and liquefy and put into the domestic market as liquefy petroleum gas for domestic use So here we have a country that through the NLNG Is exporting gas to places like the UK who are using that gas to generate electricity and pipe it to homes And develop the economies and the country that is sending this gas to the UK Is said does not have gas it's not importing gas from America importing gas from Europe that country does not also have electricity So UK are using our gas To provide 24 seven electricity Look I have lived in the UK For nearly 20 years Not one day did electricity go Not even for one second in my nearly 20 years in the UK electricity has been constant without a blip But the country that is sending gas to the UK To provide some electricity to their citizens is said does not have electricity This is a debacle What's an irony there mr. Hadouille Well, it's it's pretty sad. There's You know these are conversations that we've had also with regards oil And of course, you know our impotention of toothpicks There's so much, you know that needs to change with with regards, uh, you know, Nigeria's governance And you know what we should we should be able to provide for ourselves down here Instead of importing it But you know, it's a continued conversation Nika Goli, we always enjoy your expertise and Your views on some of these very interesting topics. So thank you for joining us this morning And we wish you a very interesting Thursday ahead. Thank you very much Thank you very much. Nigeria will certainly get better. It's the it's the best Bless country in the world, but the citizens have to do their bit 2023 is coming We have to get the leaders that will do these things for us. Absolutely. Good morning once again