Ten Percent of the World’s Gas Flares in One Spot — Nigeria

At night, gas flares—used to remove unwanted natural gas found in crude oil—outshine everything else in the Niger River Delta. In the image of Nigeria taken on December 18, 2013, by the VIIRS DNB on the Suomi NPP satellite, the lights of Port Harcourt and Benin City are dim compared to the flares. The image illustrates two facts from a U.S. Energy Information Administration assessment: Nigeria contains more gas flares than any other country except Russia, and Nigeria has one of the lowest per capita electricity generation rates in the world. About ten percent of the world’s gas flares are located in Nigeria, and most of them are concentrated in the Delta region. The flares and oil production occur both on land and offshore. It is hard to see where the land ends and the ocean begins in the nightlights image, which shows the Delta region in visible light as it might appear to the human eye. But viewing the scene in infrared light reveals the distribution of the flares.

The second VIIRS image shows the same area on the same night in midwave infrared light, a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum often used to study emitted thermal radiation at night. In this view, warm ocean waters are brighter than the cool land and cold clouds, making it possible to see the boundary between land and water. The flares shine brightly in both views.

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