By Kayode Oladipupo
Nigeria does not have a gas shortage. It has a gas-to-growth problem.
That distinction matters as the $800 million Ima Gas Project moves from a 50-year-old discovery to commercial development. The real significance of Ima is not the size of the investment cheque. It is whether Nigeria can finally turn an abundant natural resource into sustained economic productivity.
The Ima field, operated by TotalEnergies with Nigerian independent AMNI International, is expected to produce about 300–350 million standard cubic feet of gas per day at plateau. Ima gas is expected to provide roughly one-third of the feedgas required for Nigeria LNG’s Train 7 expansion, which would raise LNG production capacity from about 22 million tonnes per annum to 30 million tonnes.
This creates a potentially powerful economic chain: investment → gas production → LNG expansion → exports → foreign exchange → government revenue.
But Nigeria should not stop there.
The bigger opportunity is to use gas to transform the domestic economy. Reliable gas supply can support power generation, fertiliser and petrochemical production, manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries. Gas can therefore become more than an export commodity; it can become an industrial input that lowers production costs and improves competitiveness.
Ima also presents an important Nigerian-content opportunity. With AMNI holding a 60 percent interest and Nigerian financial institutions participating in the financing structure, the project can deepen domestic ownership and participation in the energy value chain. Engineering, fabrication, logistics, construction, financial services and professional expertise should capture a substantial share of the economic activity generated by the investment.
The same thinking must apply to employment. Local participation should not be reduced to temporary construction jobs. The real test is whether communities around Bonny, Finima, Andoni and other host areas acquire skills, build enterprises and become competitive suppliers to the wider oil and gas ecosystem.
Read Also: Kano residents lament soaring cooking gas prices, say households now cut meals
But the biggest lesson from Ima is about time.
A resource discovered in 1973 reaching commercial development decades later represents enormous opportunity cost. Nigeria cannot afford to repeat this pattern with its other gas assets.
The policy challenge, therefore, is to make the Ima experience reproducible: predictable regulation, bankable fiscal terms, efficient approvals, dependable infrastructure, credible security and faster movement from discovery to investment and production.
Nigeria should stop measuring success by the gas it has underground and start measuring it by the economic value created above ground.
The $800 million Ima investment is important. But its true dividend will be determined by what comes after the investment: more energy, more industry, more exports, more jobs, more domestic businesses and more productive capacity.
Ima should not merely become another gas project.
It should become proof that Nigeria can turn natural resources into national productivity.
Oladipupo a Public Policy Advocate is also MD and CEO Kemkay Consult. He writes from Akure Ondo State Nigeria