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The global depression in gas prices will cast a shadow over the biennial summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), which President Muhammadu Buhari is attending on Monday in Tehran, Iran.

Just like oil prices, global gas prices have fallen by more than 60 percent from its peak of about $8 per million British Thermal Unit in February last year. More so, the International Energy Agency forecasts that gas prices will remain low until the 2020s as a result of ample supply and the growth of non-pipeline gas production in America and China.

Lower oil and gas prices have reduced the revenues of major exporting countries such as Nigeria, which is the world’s fourth largest producer of gas and the thirteenth largest producer of crude oil. Oil and gas accounts for 90 percent of Nigeria’s exports and 75 percent of overall government revenues.

The GECF, which consists of 18 member countries, accounts for 42 percent of global gas output, 70 percent of global gas reserves, 40 percent of pipe gas transmission, and 65 percent of global trade of liquefied natural gas.

In July, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company – which accounts for 7 percent of the world’s total gas supply – revealed that it generated about $85 billion from gas exports since 1999 and paid about $30 billion in dividends to its shareholders. NLNG shareholders include: Nigerian National Petroleum Company (49 percent); Shell Nigeria (25.6 percent); Total Nigeria (15 percent); and Eni (10.4 percent).

Chibuike Oguh is Financial Nigeria's Frontier Markets Analyst