In Nigeria, Companies Are Thinking Before they Flare

You might know the term to flare off from when you drove the New Jersey Turnpike as a kid and asked a grown-up what those fires on top of the tall smokestacks were. You were told it was natural gas burning off from an oil well.

In Nigeria, flares have much more than a scientific interest…and stopping oil companies from doing it is becoming an increasingly loud call. A story by Benoit Faucon in today’s WSJ surmised that besides the environmental benefits, there are more tangible domestic benefits. For instance, in some communities oil companies have piped the excess natural gas to other plants to generate electricity for the towns surrounding the oil fields. By proving electricity in a power-starved nation, one that’s prone to violence against oil companies, this is just a good business move.

Again and again, pipelines, oil wells and other infrastructure is vandalized and workers are hassled by rebels who protest against the companies. Helping local towns to benefit from being near the oil fields has made Bonny Island a model, unlike in most parts of the country they provide power for 95% of the day or night. Other projects aim to do the same as in Bonny, to pipe off that natural gas that would normally be burned for nothing, into running turbines that would help power Nigerian households.

Stopping flaring and using the gas is a topic that’s come up before in Nigeria. But the violence of more recent years is pushing hard and the solution appears to be stop wasting gas and build plants to burn it to electify the angry neighbors.