Analysis
NUPRC’s September update reports 27 awarded sites out of 43 originally identified. An award is a development milestone, not proof of recovered gas or plant operation. Commercial screening must move from the permit to measured flow, composition, buyer access and the cost of delivering a compliant product.
Assume a hypothetical site supplies 2 MMscf per day, where MMscf means one million standard cubic feet. Choose 90% gas recovery, 90% annual availability, 365 days and a heating value of 1 MMBtu per Mscf. These inputs are illustrative, not Nigerian site measurements. Saleable energy equals 2 × 1,000 × 0.90 × 0.90 × 365 × 1 = 591,300 MMBtu per year.
Assume USD 4/MMBtu delivered revenue and USD 2/MMBtu variable treatment, compression and transport costs. The remaining unit contribution is USD 2/MMBtu, giving USD 1,182,600 a year before fixed costs, capital, financing and tax. This is a contribution screen, not profit or project net present value. With availability at 60%, 75% and 90%, otherwise unchanged inputs yield USD 788,400, 985,500 and 1,182,600 respectively.
Recovery and availability are separate factors: recovery concerns gas retained during operation; availability concerns when the system operates. A headline daily flow must not be multiplied by 365 without recognizing interruptions. Gas quality, pressure, liquid removal and delivery distance may alter both cost and the achievable selling price.
A decision requires a time series of flare flow, gas assays, standard-condition definitions, compression duty, processing design, buyer contracts and realistic maintenance downtime. Capturing gas does not automatically establish the avoided emissions: baseline flare efficiency, methane leakage and energy used by recovery equipment must also be assessed. Neither the chart nor the site-award count predicts actual project performance.