[Download JINN's 2010 report, Gas Flaring: an overview]

Gas flaring is the burning of natural gas that is associated with crude oil when it is pumped up from the ground. In petroleum-producing areas where insufficient investment was made in infrastructure to utilize natural gas, flaring is employed to dispose of this associated gas.

What do gas flares look like?

Photo credit: Steve Omajugho, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria.

Here’s a quick, interactive way to see, as suggested on NPR:

“go to the Web site Google Earth. It shows satellite images of the world, and you can spin the world around to Nigeria. Zoom in on a bulge along the country’s coast, and you see an oil-producing region. If you look closely, you’ll see bright yellow spots. Those are the flames of burning natural gas, flames so big, they are visible from space. The gas comes up when companies drill for oil. There’s still no market for much of it, so the companies burn it. Some experts believe Nigeria’s gas flares are the single largest source of greenhouse gasses in Africa, south of the Sahara.”

Or watch this film to see and learn about health and environmental destruction of flaring in the Niger Delta:

Why do oil companies flare gas?

In Nigeria, when oil companies began production in the 1960’s, the cheapest way to separate the identified product, crude oil, from the associated natural gas was to burn the gas.

What are the global impacts of gas flaring?

After Russia, Nigeria flares more gas than any other country in the world, in terms of the total volume of gas flared. In 2004 Nigeria’s volume of gas flared was equivalent to one-sixth of total gas flaring in world. Globally, the volume of gas flared between 1996-2006 (during which time awareness of the detrimental impact of flare emissions on the global climate grew) remained relatively constant, ranging between 150-170 billion cubic meters. Nigeria’s share of the total volume is approximately 24.1 billion cubic meters of gas. (By comparison, the U.S. flared 2.8 billion cubic meters during the same time period).

Gas flaring not only wastes a potentially valuable source of energy (natural gas), it also adds significant carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Moreover, flaring combustion is typically incomplete, releasing substantial amounts of soot and carbon monoxide, which contribute to air pollution problems.

An array of technologies to capture or use of the associated natural gas exist as viable alternatives to flaring. It can be reinjected, which boosts oil production and contains the gas; transported via gas pipelines; converted to liquids that can be more readily transported; or used on site. Note that most Nigerian villages lack electricity and access to fuel for vehicles.

NPR’s Ofabia Quist Arcton has reported that according to some experts, eliminating global flaring alone would curb more CO2 emissions than all the projects currently registered under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism.

What about local impacts?

In Nigeria, oil companies engage in gas flaring, as a 24 hour-a-day, 365 day-a-year practice. Some of these flares have burned without cessation for 40 years. People live literally next door to the roaring, ground-level flares that leap as high as a several-story building and belch black clouds of toxic smoke in the middle of, or next door to, their villages. As mentioned above, these flares are large enough to be viewed on Google Earth. Gas flaring harms local health through emissions that have been linked to cancers, asthma, chronic bronchitis, blood disorders, and other diseases. These human health problems affect the people of oil-producing communities, such as the Niger Delta, where 30 million people live with little to no health care access.

Gas flaring causes acid rain, which impacts soil fertility and is associated with reduced crop yields, causing hunger in the Niger Delta where fish populations already have declined due to pollution by oil companies, including Chevron. Acid rain eats through villagers roofs that protect local residents from rain. Impoverished villagers have little means to replace their roofs more frequently.

Is gas flaring legal?

Flaring gas is illegal in Nigeria. The first order by Nigerian head of State related to flaring was in 1969 when President Yakubu Gowan ordered that within 5 years of set-up, a company must cease flaring. This order was ignored. Through the Associated Gas Re-Injection Act Number 99 of 1979, the Nigerian government required oil corporations operating in Nigeria to guarantee zero flares by January 1, 1984. Oil companies nonetheless have continued to flare gas, merely paying nominal fines for breaking this law.

The Act allowed some conditions for specific exemptions or the payment of a fee of US $0.003 (0.3 cents) per million cubic feet, which increased in 1988 to US $0.07 per million cubic feet, and in January 2008 to US $3.50 for every 1000 standard cubic feet of gas flared. This is still considered meager and not a deterrent for companies, which find it easier to just pay the fine.  Chevron is resisting payment of the increased fine.

Subsequent federal Nigerian legislation repeatedly pushed back the deadline to end gas flaring absolutely–in other words, requiring companies to cease flaring and discontinuing the policy of allowing them to pay a fine for continuing to flare–most recently to year-end 2007, then 2008, then 2010.

Though the Nigerian government promised to enforce the ban they themselves set on flaring in December 31, 2008, they have not enforced the ban by fining the oil companies as promised. Instead they are attempting to delay the deadline yet again, with the backing of the oil industry, to 2012.

In 2005 the federal High Court of Nigeria ruled flaring by Shell and the NNPC, with which Chevron jointly operates, illegal and a violation of the rights to life and dignity.

Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, Nnimmo Bassey’s comments following a postponement of the flaring ban in 2008 still apply to the status of gas flaring today:

“The inconsistency of the Yar’Adua administration on the flare-out date is particularly an embarrassment of international proportions. It is a slap on the faces of the people of the Niger Delta that the same government spokesman under this administration who once described the attainment of zero flares as a moving target and proposed a so-called gas oil ratio barely three months ago is now talking of a 2011 flare-out date.”

“This government is taking the people of the Niger Delta on a rollercoaster ride and its credibility is surely in question. The minister’s intermittent public pronouncements on this issue clearly shows this administrations lack of political will to enforce the flare-out. We cannot afford another time-buying exercise while our people die from gas flare-induced cancer, pollution of the air, water, and destruction of their livelihoods.”

Watch activists in the Netherlands protest gas flaring in Nigeria

Want to learn more about gas flaring?

Here are some worthy reads:

Stakeholder Democracy Network, “Gas Flaring in Nigeria: Towards an Alternative Solution.”

The Independent [UK] article, “Visible from Space, Deadly on Earth: The Gas Flares of Nigeria,” Apr. 27, 2010.

Wall Street Journal article, “A Lack of Flare,” Oct. 19, 2009.

Social Action’s 2009 report, “Flames of Hell: Gas Flaring in the Niger Delta.”

International Institute for Environment and Development, “Access to Sustainable Energy: What Role for International Oil and Gas Companies? Focus on Nigeria,” June 2009.

World Bank Report, A Twelve Year Record of National and Global Gas Flaring Volumes Estimated Using Satellite Data (estimating annual loss caused by gas flaring at over $2.5 billion and stating that wasted gas in Nigeria has the potential to solve over half of the African continents power needs).

How can you help?

Take Action to Stop Gas Flaring