Nigeria’s Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has said that Nigeria will be able to send more Liquefied Natural Gas(LNG) to Europe by next winter as the country will soon take the final decision on the investment to build the required infrastructure.
The Minister made the statement on Wednesday at the Gastech Conference in Millan, according to Reuters.
Europe desperately needs an alternative source to Russia’s constricting gas supplies. The region has been taking steps to prop up its energy needs. By introducing gas usage cuts and sourcing the commodity from other oil-producing nations, it hopes to avert an energy crisis that could lead to rolling blackouts, shuttered factories, and a deep recession.
With Russia’s slashes of natural gas supplies to Europe and Putin’s recent threat to stop all gas supplies from Russia to Europe if Brussels proceeds with its proposed price cap on Russian gas, a recent Western step to depriving the Kremlin of funds to finance the war, Europe may struggle to contain the looming energy crisis.
According to the Nigerian minister, security issues have been a major setback to the delivery of more energy to Europe but Nigeria will build a pipeline to transport Nigerian gas through Algeria to Europe.
Timipre Sylva stated that the project may cost more than $10 billion and that oil companies from Nigeria and Algeria will be involved.
What you should know
The reductions in Russian gas supplies to Europe have led to soaring natural gas prices, which have hit record highs in the past few weeks. Also, Russia’s slow constriction of gas supplies since last summer suggests zero Russian gas soon.
Russia Weaponized gas supply to Europe as a means of getting back at the West over the economic sanctions it received for invading Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
In Containing the looming crisis, Europe has lined up substitute gas suppliers and approved a plan to collapse gas use by 15% by next March, an amount experts believe it will need to make up for the loss of Russian gas.
