The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has renewed its agreement with TotalEnergies to extend the deployment of of the Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Applications (AUSEA), a drone-based used to detect, measure, and reduce methane and carbon emission across its upstream operations for another 24 months.
The renewal builds on an earlier agreement signed in 2023 and is intended to support NNPC’s gas flare reduction obligations under its oil and gas Decarbonisation Charter commitments, its participation in the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, and its target of near-zero methane emissions by 2030.
NNPC’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Andy Odeh, in a statement said the agreement was signed at NNPC Towers in Abuja on Wednesday by the NNPC Ltd’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Udy Ntia and TotalEnergies Country Chair and Managing Director, Matthieu Bouyer, on behalf of their respective companies.
Ntia said he was satisfied with the first phase of the technology’s deployment and wanted to see it scaled across more of NNPC’s assets.
“Today’s signing represents a practical step in NNPC Limited’s journey to build a credible, transparent and action-oriented decarbonization programme. Through the AUSEA initiative, we are strengthening our ability to detect, quantify and prioritise methane abatement opportunities using advanced measurement technology,” he said.
He also called for progress reporting on the initiative to be institutionalised in line compliance requirements and raised the possibility of eventually transferring of the AUSEA technology to NNPC.
Also speaking, TotalEnergies’ Senior Vice President for Africa, Mr. Mike Sangster, said his company had enjoyed strong cooperation with NNPC over the years.
According to him, TotalEnergies was the first oil producing company in Nigeria to end gas flaring in all its assets and that the AUSEA technology was instrumental to that feat, even as the company looks forward to near-zero methane emissions by 2030.
AUSEA was developed by TotalEnergies in partnership with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Reims. It helps in the identification of unaccounted emission sources, establishment of basis for querying and improving current emission reporting processes, provision of data to review operational systems and implement corrective actions, as well as estimation of flare combustion efficiency.
