NNPC Ltd’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Udy Ntia (2nd from right) and TotalEnergies Country Chair and Managing Director, Matthieu Bouyer (1st from left), signing an MoU to extend the deployment of the Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Applications (AUSEA) technology for the detection, measurement, and reduction of methane and carbon emission across upstream operations for another 24 months. The MoU was signed at the NNPC Towers in Abuja, on Wednesday.
NNPC Ltd’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Udy Ntia (2nd from right) and TotalEnergies Country Chair and Managing Director, Matthieu Bouyer (1st from left), signing an MoU to extend the deployment of the Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Applications (AUSEA) technology for the detection, measurement, and reduction of methane and carbon emission across upstream operations for another 24 months. The MoU was signed at the NNPC Towers in Abuja, on Wednesday.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPC Ltd, has renewed its agreement with TotalEnergies to extend the deployment of the Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Applications, AUSEA, technology for another 24 months to detect, measure, and reduce methane and carbon emissions across its upstream operations.
The agreement, signed on Wednesday at the NNPC Towers in Abuja, is aimed at helping NNPC Ltd meet its gas flare reduction obligations in line with its Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter commitments, Oil & Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 participation, and near-zero methane ambition by 2030.
It follows an earlier agreement signed in 2023 for the adoption of the AUSEA technology. This was contained in a press release signed by Andy Odeh Chief corporate Communications Officer NNPCL and made available to Newsmen on Wednesday.
According to the statement, NNPC Ltd’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Udy Ntia, and TotalEnergies Country Chair and Managing Director, Matthieu Bouyer, signed on behalf of their respective companies.
Speaking at the signing, Ntia expressed satisfaction with the first phase of the deployment of the technology and called for its scale-up across more NNPC 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,” Ntia said.
He also called for the institutionalization of progress reporting in line with compliance requirements and expressed interest in exploring the possibility of leveraging transfer of the AUSEA technology.
On his part, TotalEnergies’ Senior Vice President, Africa, Mike Sangster, commended the cooperation the company has enjoyed from NNPC over the years.
He noted that TotalEnergies was the first oil producing company in Nigeria to end gas flaring in all its assets, adding that the AUSEA technology was instrumental to that feat.
He reaffirmed the company’s commitment to achieving near-zero methane emissions by 2030.
AUSEA is a drone-based technology 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.
