Nigeria’s fight against gas flaring appears to be moving backward rather than forward, with fresh data showing the country lost an estimated 62,400 gigawatt-hours of potential electricity generation to flared gas between 2024 and 2025, an 18.6 per cent jump from the 50,800 GWh lost in the previous two-year period, despite years of federal penalties designed to discourage the practice.
The figures, compiled by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, put a striking price tag on the waste: $2.2 billion worth of gas flared during the period, against which defaulting operators, spanning both international and national oil companies, are liable for penalties totaling $1.2 billion. NOSDRA’s breakdown shows onshore operations were the larger contributor, flaring 380.6 million standard cubic feet compared to 243.8 million SCF offshore, a combined total that generated an estimated 33.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
That trend places Nigeria squarely within a troubling global pattern. The World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report ranked the country among the world’s nine biggest gas-flaring nations in 2025, alongside Russia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Mexico, Libya, Algeria, and the United States, a group the report says accounted for 83 per cent of all gas flared worldwide despite producing just 46 per cent of global oil output. Globally, flaring climbed to 167 billion cubic metres in 2025, with Nigeria’s roughly nine bcm share making it the seventh-largest flaring country on the planet.
What makes the numbers particularly frustrating, according to NOSDRA, is that they persist despite decades of government intervention, continuing to squander energy resources that could otherwise power homes and industries while releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the process.
For Professor Emeritus of Petroleum Economics Wumi Iledare, the persistence of flaring points to something deeper than lax enforcement. He argues the real problem lies in the absence of a functioning gas-to-power value chain capable of making capture more attractive than flaring in the first place. “Gas flaring in Nigeria is not merely an environmental issue; it reflects a failure of power market economics, gas commercialisation and sector governance. Every molecule of gas flared represents lost opportunities to generate electricity, support industries, create jobs, earn export revenues and strengthen energy security,” he said.
Iledare traced the root causes to a combination of weak gas-gathering infrastructure, an illiquid electricity market, distorted pricing, and regulatory inefficiencies, conditions that collectively make flaring the path of least resistance for producers. He cautioned that simply raising penalties won’t be enough to reverse the trend on its own. “While higher flare penalties are necessary, penalties alone will not solve the problem. They must be complemented by policies that encourage gas capture, infrastructure investment, market-based pricing and a financially sustainable electricity market where gas producers are assured of timely payment,” he said.
