Making use of a resource that goes up in smoke

A pipeline that would feed Nigerian natural gas to three other West African countries is to be laid down within three years, according to a memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday. The agreement, signed in Cotonou by oil transnationals Chevron and Shell with representatives of the governments of Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, envisages that the pipeline will be ready by 2002 to deliver gas to power stations and industries in the recipient countries. "Chevron is proposing the construction of the US$ 400-million, 1,000-kilometre offshore pipeline to bring a massive supply of natural gas from reserves in Nigeria," Chevron, which will manage the project, said in a statement. The immediate environmental benefits of the project would include reducing the amount of gas released during petroleum mining that is flared in Nigeria, the world's sixth biggest oil producer and Africa's largest. Environmentalists have identified flares from Nigeria's oil fields, where over 75 percent of natural gas occurring with oil is burned off, as one of the world's major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. See Item: irin-english-1419, titled 'IRIN Special Report on gas pipeline'