Nigeria Ranks 8th Chilling Among Global Countries With Biggest Gas Reserves

Nigeria has been recognized among the top-ten global countries with the biggest gas reserves in the world.

BrandNewsDay reports that Nigeria was ranked after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with natural gas reserves worth about 5.85 trillion cubic meters.

This online newspaper platform noted that Nigeria’s latest ranking makes it the country with the largest proven natural gas reserves in Africa, but utilizing these reserves has lagged behind the utilization of its oil reserves.

Natural gas has been hailed as the bridge between a fossil fuel past and a low-carbon future. It has also been demonized as a Trojan horse for the fossil fuel industry to continue to be relevant in that low-carbon future envisioned by the architects of the transition.

Russia is reported as the world’s number one and has natural gas reserves of as much as 38 trillion cubic meters, according to the 2020 edition of BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy. Production last year totalled 573 billion cubic meters, down by 13.4% on the year.

Historically, Europe and Turkey were Russia’s biggest gas buyers, but after last year’s events, Turkey has remained the only big consumer of Russian gas with any footprint in Europe. Today, China is the main destination for Russian pipeline gas. Russia also exports Liquified Natural Gas, LNG, and, in an ironic twist, European imports of Russian LNG rose strongly last year.

The world’s second-largest natural gas reserve is Iran with 32 trillion cubic meters and is home to 16 per cent of the global total.

A lot of Iran’s gas reserves are concentrated in the South Pars offshore field in the Persian Gulf, which it shares with Qatar. Total production for 2020 reached 234 billion cubic meters or a daily average of 645 million cubic meters.

Development of the country’s massive gas reserves has been challenging because of the pullout of Western supermajors such as TotalEnergies in the wake of the reinstated U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Iran’s neighbour Qatar, which calls its part of the massive Persian Gulf field the North Field, is a notch below Iran in terms of gas reserves, with 24.7 trillion cubic meters. Until recently, the largest LNG exporter in the world, Qatar, was expanding its production capacity, aiming for 126 million tons annually from the current 77 million tons.

Qatar was a first choice for European gas buyers in the wake of the anti-Russian sanctions that saw gas flows decimated, but it turned out sealing a deal would be tougher than expected: Qatar turned out to like long-term purchase commitments, and Europe has an aversion to those.

Little known outside Central Asia but one of the biggest states there, Turkmenistan is home to the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves, with a total of some 19.5 trillion cubic meters according to BP’s statistical review.

Production is low, however, at just some 59 billion cubic meters in 2020, most of which was exported to China because domestic consumption is also relatively low. The country also exports gas to its Central Asian neighbours.