Nigeria can offer a helping hand to the EU with long term natural gas needs, its oil minister said in a statement yesterday.

Diezani Alison-Madueke referred to her nation’s reserves of 180 trillion cubic feet of gas when meeting with EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger yesterday on the fringes of an EU-OPEC meeting in Brussels.

Alison-Madueke is quoted as saying: “The discussions focused on the role Nigeria can play in supporting the EU’s energy sector priorities,” reported Platts.

A steady flow of gas to Europe from Russia has been cast into doubt recently by the Ukraine crisis. Ministers have been mulling other sources of gas, such as the USA.

Nigeria has Africa’s large natural gas reserves and was the world’s fourth largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in 2012, according to the US Energy Information Administration.