This results from a shortage of LNG supplies from the Russian market, on which Portugal has traditionally depended on.
Maria da Graca Carvalho, Portugal’s environment minister, disclosed this information on Tuesday.
According to statistics from power and gas networks operator REN, as seen in a report by Reuters, Portugal imported 49,141 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of natural gas in 2024, with around 96% of that amount being LNG.
Approximately 40 percent of those LNG deliveries came from the US, 4.4 percent from Russia, and 51% came from Nigeria.
This is sharp contrast to 2021 when Russia accounted for 15% of Portugal’s LNG supplies.
However, sanctions placed on Russian products by the European Union, after the Kremlin declared war on Ukraine has seen Russian supplies dwindle.
“Portugal is now practically independent of Russian gas … but we want to reduce this figure further by importing more gas from Nigeria and the United States,” Graca Carvalho told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, according to economic website ECO.
Nigeria’s LNG revenue
A recent report revealed that Nigeria’s LNG trade seems to be on an upward trajectory.
According to data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigeria produced 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas last year.
This amounted to a revenue generation of approximately N8.6tn, throughout the year.
Nigeria generated 1.44TCF of associated gas, according to the data provided by the group. Likewise, in the period under review, 1.06TCF of non-associated gas was produced.
However, 192.89 billion standard cubic feet of gas were flared in 2024, whereas 2.31 trillion TCF of gas was used.
The 2.31TCF of gas used in 2024, as reported by the Punch, was roughly 2,370,061,914 MMBTU. When multiplied by $2.42, it comes to around $5.74 billion.
At an average exchange rate of N1,500 to the dollar, the number equates to around N8.6 trillion produced from gas output in 2024.
In contrast to 2023, when 2.3 tcf of the 2.49 tcf of gas produced was used and 183.52 bcf was flared, 92.2% of the gas generated in 2024 was used, while 7.69 percent was flared.
It took almost 2.46 million standard cubic feet for the gas to shrink.
The Nigerian government, last year, claimed that the country’s gas output would increase from 7.5 billion cubic feet per day to 12 billion cubic feet per day.
In keeping with the Decade of Gas ambition, Ekperikpe Ekpo, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), revealed that increasing gas production and transforming Nigeria into a gas economy will be the main priorities in his second year in office.
“In the Decade of Gas, we are looking at turning Nigeria into a gas economy by 2030, in which case, we are looking at growing from 7.5 billion cubic feet to about 12bcf. So, we are progressing in that direction to make sure we have gas sufficiency in the country,” he stated.
LNG-associated gas and non-associated gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) can come from two main sources: related gas and non-associated gas.
Associated gas is natural gas that occurs as a byproduct in petroleum reserves. It is “associated” because it coexists with crude oil in the same reservoir.
Typically extracted during the oil production process, the gas is separated from the crude oil and can be utilized as fuel for operations, re-injected into the reservoir to increase oil recovery, or converted into LNG for transportation and consumption.
On the flip side, non-associated gas refers to natural gas that occurs independently of crude oil.
It is found in natural gas reserves that do not contain considerable levels of crude oil.
This is taken straight from gas fields containing predominantly methane and varied amounts of contaminants.
