Abuja goes for gas, again

Nigeria has long tried to develop a domestic gas market. The Buhari administration is trying again

Nigeria's cabinet has approved a new National Gas Policy—news that, to many observers, might prompt a shrug. Successive governments have promise, and failed, to stimulate investment in the country's under-exploited gas resources for nearly as long as its hydrocarbons industry has been in existence. This time, it might just lead to more than empty rhetoric. Nigeria has gas reserves of around 187 trillion cubic feet—the world's ninth-largest endowment—but produces only around 1.7 trillion cf annually, most of which goes to the 22m-tonnes-a-year Nigeria LNG export plant. Failure to incentivise gas exploration, invest in infrastructure and botched efforts by previous administrations to privatise