Lagos — The federal government has said that gas flaring will be reduced to two percent by 2017.

Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke said this yesterday at the ongoing 13th Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja.

She said the ministry had reduced gas flaring to less than 11 per cent as against 30 per cent in 2010 but said that was still not enough.

The minister said: "This year's conference gives us great opportunity to discuss and address the oil and gas business, challenges and government's plan for the sector in the next five years. The ministry of petroleum had played a critical role in transforming the oil and gas sector which has been the primary objective of the ministry."

She said the oil and gas sector had witnessed tremendous renewed performance level in the last three years under the leadership of President Good luck Jonathan, which has placed the industry in a better stead.

Alison-Madueke said in the upstream sector, the ministry had continued over the last 12 months to maintain its production of 2.4 million barrel per day.

She added that gas production in the country had also increased from 6.3 billion Standard Cubic Feet per day (SCF) to 7.8 billion SCF per day in 2012.

"The initiative to grow the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) to medium sizes of oil and gas companies over the last couples of years had been done in an aggressive manner.

"It has been very difficult to put in place, but we have put in place a robust and aggressive issue in trying to support the national oil company in the way and manner we did," she added.

The minister said that in spite of being accused of selling the country's oil blocks, it had signed NNPC equity over to NPDC.