The Chief Executive Officer of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Initiative, Engr. Michael Oluwagbemi, on Tuesday, said Nigeria flares no less than one billion cubic feet of gas daily while injecting three billion into wells and exporting three billion to develop other places.

He revealed that only 1.3 billion cubic feet of gas is utilised domestically, with barely any going into transport, which would change now as they commit to this mission through the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI) and the Nigerian Army.

Stating that “Nigeria is a gas country that happens to have some oil,” Oluwagbemi said Nigeria has 208 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas in 30 of 36 states.

The PCNGI boss stated this during a handing-over ceremony of five brand-new CNG buses to the Nigerian Army at Army Headquarters in Abuja.

He said, “Natural Gas has four primary traditional uses – for power, for cooking and heating, for gas-based industry, including the making of fertilisers and urea to improve our food security, and for transport, which is our business today.

“But I would be remiss not to mention a new use of gas, which we have in abundance, given that I’m with the Army, which is the bedrock of innovation and excellence in our country. Today, the US, Costa Rica and China are building cryptocurrency reserves by doing crypto mining, much like mining gold and diamond, to support their currency with strategic crypto reserves leveraging cheap, stranded energy sources like gas and geothermal.”

He stated that Nigeria could do the same with thousands of stranded gas wells and build a stronger naira to make the Nigerian Army’s work easier.

He noted that about a year and six months ago, the Nigerian Army led the way when this programme was still very new, making itself available as the pilot institution for the noble initiative to make life better for all Nigerians by offering sustainable transportation leveraging natural gas.

He stressed that the donation marked a furtherance of a robust and strategic partnership between PCNGI and the Nigerian Army.

He said In addition to the buses, the presidential initiative announced a comprehensive support package that includes, “free CNG conversion incentives for Army personnel vehicles, which includes the supply of free kits to Army Conversion Centres and full participation of those centres in our Conversion Incentive Program to ensure 5,000 Army personnel get their vehicles converted to CNG in the coming months.”

Others, he said, included dedicated daughter station allocation to serve military formations and capacity development programmes to empower soldiers and their families with technical skills and economic opportunities in the emerging green economy, among others.

“By embracing CNG, we are not only cutting down the cost of operations but also taking bold steps towards reducing carbon emissions, improving public health, and building a resilient and energy-diverse transportation ecosystem. The Nigerian Army is known for always being ahead in innovation and logistics,” he said. (AriseNews TV)