ESTIMATION OF REVENUE ACCRUING FROM MONETIZATION OF FLARE NATURAL GAS IN NIGERIA

Natural gas is fast gaining dominance in the energy market as more uses of it are discovered frequently. Many Nations have placed stringent laws aimed at completely eradicating gas flaring. This trend has opened new windows in the natural gas industry as investors seize this opportunity to monetize the flared gases. The pertinent issues for investors are what volumes of useful products are recoverable from a given volume of flared unprocessed associated natural gas and the costs of gas recovery and processing technologies. This paper describes in details, the cashflow movements in the life of flare gas projects, indicating areas of expenditures and revenues. It reveals the total financial outlays for a successful flare gas recovery, processing and monetization of 20MMscfd of gas at base conditions. From the work, three main products are recovered from the modular processing plant namely; Dry gas, Liquefied Petroleum gas and Condensates. It also shows that wetter gasses yield more volumes of LPG and condensates than drier gases (C1/C2). The study further shows that the main factors affecting gross revenue accruing from the sales of natural gas products are the feed gas stream composition, sales price of the products and the feed gas flow rate.