Nigeria LNG Ltd. is betting on a 35 percent jump in production capacity to keep the West African nation’s gas ambitions on track, even as feedgas shortages and a wave of new global supply threaten to complicate the push.
The company, known as NLNG, told reporters at a media briefing in Nigeria’s commercial capital that its Train 7 project remains the centerpiece of a strategy meant to shore up domestic energy supply, boost exports and cement Nigeria’s position in an increasingly crowded liquefied natural gas market.
‘Train 7 represents much more than additional production capacity,’ Adeleye Falade, managing director and chief executive officer, said. ‘It reflects our confidence in Nigeria’s gas potential and our commitment to creating long-term value through increased exports, stronger domestic gas supply, Nigerian Content development and economic growth.’
The expansion, described by Falade as one of Africa’s largest LNG projects, will lift NLNG’s output to 30 million tonnes a year from 22 million once complete, while adding roughly 250,000 tonnes annually of liquefied petroleum gas, a nearly 50 percent increase, to a domestic market that has struggled with cooking-gas shortages and price spikes.
The stakes extend beyond the plant gates on Bonny Island. NLNG has positioned itself as a proof point for President Bola Tinubu’s Decade of Gas initiative, an effort to wean Africa’s largest crude producer off its dependence on oil revenue by turning associated and non-associated gas into a driver of industrialisation.
Falade used the briefing to lay out the scale of NLNG’s contribution since it began shipping cargoes nearly three decades ago: more than $149.6 billion in revenue, $47.2 billion in dividends paid to shareholders, which include the Nigerian government, and $10.8 billion remitted in taxes since the company became tax compliant. NLNG has loaded more than 6,285 cargoes and built an asset base topping $22.9 billion, he said.
Those figures underpin the company’s pitch that Nigeria’s advantage lies not just in the size of its reserves – among the largest in the world – but in whether they can be converted into cash flow and jobs before rivals from the U.S. Gulf Coast, Qatar and East Africa lock in market share.
‘Nigeria possesses one of the world’s largest gas reserves,’ Falade said. ‘Our collective responsibility is to monetise that resource responsibly and sustainably, creating jobs, expanding energy access, driving industrialisation and improving lives for generations to come.’
Even so, Falade acknowledged the industry’s persistent bottleneck: getting enough gas to the plant. Feedgas availability remains ‘a priority for the Nigerian gas sector,’ he said, pointing to upstream reforms and closer coordination with regulators and producers as the path to securing supply for both Train 7 and the existing production trains.
Sophia Horsfall, NLNG’s general manager for external relations and sustainable development, framed the briefing as part of a broader push for transparency rather than a routine numbers dump. ‘Today’s engagement is not simply about sharing statistics,’ she said. ‘It is about providing context that enables better understanding of NLNG’s business, our contribution to Nigeria’s economy, and the strategic role natural gas continues to play in supporting sustainable development.’
On the environmental side, Falade pointed to emissions-monitoring investments, conservation work at the Finima Nature Park and continued talks with regulators on carbon capture and storage as evidence the company is trying to pair expansion with decarbonization commitments. He also cited the Bonny-Bodo Road – the first road link between Bonny Island and mainland Rivers State – as one of the largest corporate infrastructure investments in the country, one the company says has opened new economic activity for communities along the route.