Gas safety takes center stage in Nigeria’s energy transition

Ensuring safe usage has topped concerns for stakeholders in the gas industry as they plan to converge for a safety conference in Abuja. This is coming on the heels of Nigeria’s transition into a gas-powered economy through the adoption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

According to Sunday Kashio, managing director, Fleissen events and company, organisers of the conference, the adoption of gas has brought with it increasing safety risks, regulatory demands, and infrastructure challenges which must be properly managed.

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For Kashio, the Gas Safety Conference (GSC) 2025 is Nigeria’s first dedicated platform for gas safety dialogue and action. The conference, he said is expected to bring together government and stakeholders across the Nigeria gas value chain from gas production, transportation, distribution, and utilisation to coordinate national safety priorities.

He said, “We are all witness as to how the space is moving very quickly with the whole country now understanding gas and beginning to use gas in various forms and shapes. Obviously, one thing that is clear on Nigerian roads at the moment is to see trucks carrying compressed natural gas, some of those trucks carry liquefied natural gas and some carry liquefied petroleum gas. They are all gases in various forms.

“Nigeria is a country that is endowed with gas. Interestingly, the government has realised that now and is beginning to put more interest in gas and we are beginning to see results with gas utilisation everywhere now. But gas is not like oil, you cannot just hold gas in one place, gas can easily escape, so handling gas becomes a very important thing, especially from the safety perspective.

“Whether you are producing gas, transporting gas, or you are a user of gas in your house, business, or power plant, the safety of gas usage becomes extremely important. Not just in transportation or in the production of gas, but across the value chain, the safety of handling gas becomes very important, which is why we think this conference is very important for the country.”

Noting the various programs of the government to promote gas usage across the country, Kashio said not so much is being done to ensure safety.

“Now we have the presidential CNG initiative, the decade of gas, the National Gas Expansion Program, we have various companies that are transporting gas across the country, we have various things like converting vehicles that are running on petrol now to running on gas. So much is happening in this space, but what we don’t hear about is safety.

“Is the country ready to ensure that we don’t have safety incidents? This is what you see in traffic. So just imagine if there’s any incidents. So it’s developing infrastructure, developing standards, developing guidelines, and not just developing these guidelines and standards, but monitoring becomes extremely important, training becomes extremely important,” he added.

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“For every country that has taken up gas, from India to Iran to countries like Argentina, safety is the number one thing they take very seriously. Some countries that have challenges, like India, have huge challenges with taking up gas and many accidents are happening. These accidents usually involve a lot of lives. We don’t want that to happen in Nigeria and we are leading this, trying to organise a conference.”

He also disclosed plans to launch the National Gas Safety Declaration. “So this National Gas Safety Declaration is a policy document that every year of this conference, we are going to be bringing out this document for people to sign.

“The essence of this document is to follow up with organisations that have signed to this, to ensure that they are doing whatever it takes within their remit to ensure that people are safe,” he added.