The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) is working in collaboration with the United States Department of States and international management consultancy firm, Deloitte, to meet its net-zero carbon goals by embarking on a project aimed at reducing the emission of methane and other greenhouse gases from its upstream operations.

The project which is at its conceptual stage was the focus of a three-day Technical Assistance on Oil & Gas Sector Global Methane Abatement and Decarbonisation Workshop which kicked off at the PTDF Tower, in Abuja, on Monday.

The workshop, which was a follow-up on an earlier one held in July 2023, was, amongst other things, aimed at defining the critical success elements of the project.

Some of the critical elements of the project tabled at the workshop include: determining the scope of the project, establishing a baseline for methane and carbon emissions from the selected operation sites, collecting relevant data on the selected sites and helping the Deloitte consultants to understand the operations and expectations of NNPC Ltd.

Participants at the workshop unanimously selected OML 34 located onshore in Western Niger Delta which has the Utorogu and Ughelli Fields as the operation site for the pilot stage of the project.

Participants were drawn from relevant NNPC Ltd.’s subsidiaries and Departments such as Exploration & Production; New Energy; Gas Infrastructure; Health, Safety, and Environment, as well as Federal Government agencies like the National Council on Climate Change.

The project is sponsored by the United States Department of State Bureau of Energy Resources, Energy and Mineral Governance Programme (EMGP).