Across our operations, we are working to reduce flaring of gas that has no economic outlet as well as gas that is flared as a result of maintenance or unexpected operating events. ExxonMobil Development Company developed Flare and Venting Reduction Standards for use in the design of major upstream projects. We continue to implement procedures and projects to improve operations reliability and thereby reduce the flaring associated with unexpected operating events and equipment maintenance.
Flaring — burning gas under controlled conditions — serves as a safety device to protect people, equipment, and facilities during operation disruptions or maintenance. It also enables oil and gas production when gas injection or gas utilization pipeline infrastructure is not available, as has been the case in Nigeria. ExxonMobil is committed to increasing gas utilization in Nigeria and is actively progressing projects that will end routine gas flaring from our operations.
ExxonMobil has focused on improving gas utilization as oil and gas production have increased. Even as gas production has increased six-fold, we have successfully increased gas utilization from 25 to 80 percent. In 2008, several gas utilization projects were commissioned, helping to reduce flaring in Nigeria by nearly half versus 2006 to 2007 levels.
Our approach to gas utilization and flare reduction in Nigeria has been to extract natural gas liquids (NGL) for sale and inject produced gas, which maximizes oil recovery by maintaining reservoir pressure. We have invested over $5 billion to increase gas utilization, with each project requiring years of engineering design, construction, and installation. We have made significant progress over the last decade, with the installation of six gas re-injection facilities, two offshore NGL extraction plants, and higher efficiency flare stacks. The most recent of these projects is the East Area Project, which includes a gas compression platform that injects gas to maintain reservoir pressure and an extraction platform that recovers NGL from the gas stream. The project's gas utilization capacity will continue to increase through 2011 as additional gas gathering facilities are installed. In 2008, three flare reduction projects were commissioned, which reduced flaring by approximately 120 million cubic feet per day (mcfd).
By the end of 2008, we reduced our flaring in Nigeria to less than 300 mcfd. We aim to reduce flaring even further through future projects and operational efforts, which include existing flaring protocols and improving equipment reliability. Our ability to commission these projects in a timely manner and to realize flare reductions relies on a cooperative approach with our partners in Nigeria to maintain funding, enhance security, and improve the overall infrastructure for gas utilization.
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