Kachickwu says the country's Infrastructure is critical to ending gas flaring

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Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr . Ibe Kachikwu , has said the country’ s infrastructure gap remains a critical challenge to government ’ s gas commercialisation agenda .

Kachikwu in an interview with news men  noted that the opportunities in the country's gas resourses will not be effectively utilised without  potential investments in infrastructure.

The Minister said with current investment in the 614 km - 40 - inch Ajaokuta- Kaduan - Kano ( AKK ) Pipeline ,3 , 500 megawatts ( MW ) of electricity will be added to the existing 7 , 000MW , as well as tackle  challenges around stranded gas .

He berated the government for not putting measures in place to eradicate the infrastructure challenge.Kachickwu also  said the sector has improved drastically on the availability of gas to power plants by 16 per cent over the last two to three years  stressing that more achievements  could have been recorded if the country had good infrastructure.

While Speaking on LPG /cooking gas penetration , he stressed that it is imperative to get to the point where it becomes easy to find cylinders.

However, the Minister disclosed that the Ministry is collaborating with  with the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) , to ensure that they  provide support loans to ivestors in LPG penetration.