AFP - Nigeria will next January ban gas flaring, an environmentally unfriendly practice of burning gas extracted alongside oil, the junior foreign minister, Bagudu Hirse, said on Wednesday.

Nigeria, the world's second-biggest gas flarer after Russia, has in the past decade repeatedly issued warnings and deadlines to oil companies to stop the practice, but none have been respected.

"By the end of next month, after December, there will be no gas flaring by any oil company operating in Nigeria," Hirse told reporters.

Gas flaring not only constitutes a serious environmental threat, but is a waste of a commodity the energy-starved country desperately needs to boost its power output.

"We will now be able to save enough gas for our local needs and also meet demands for the west African gas pipeline as well as the Trans-Saharan gas project," the minister said.

In theory, flaring has been illegal in Nigeria since 1979, but companies have been granted exemptions year after year, allowing them to continue the practice.

Last December, a ban that was supposed to take effect on January 1 was shifted.

Oil operators say they are committed to phasing out flaring but point out that the exercise is costly and will take time.

Climate experts estimate Nigeria accounts for 13 percent of the gas flared worldwide.

Nigeria claims to have gas reserves of about 183 trillion cubic feet and ranks seventh in the world, but a great deal of gas gets flared daily in the southern oil-producing Niger Delta region.