By Adewale Sanyaolu
Fresh facts emerged at the weekend that Nigeria loses $15 billion annually, a figure about the size of the national budget, due to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude oil production shortfall.
Chairman of Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), Mr. Wole Ogunsanya, raised the concern during a familarisation visit by the leadership of the Association of Energy Correspondents (NAEC) led by its Chairman, Mr. Ugo Amadi.
He further disclosed that PETAN as the implementing arm of the Offshore Technology Conference, which holds annually in Houston, Texas, USA, has reviewed some of its activities to now include platforms for presentations and panel sessions that have been created for government parastatals that are involved in the drive to increase oil exploration and production. The huge revenue loss according to Ogunsanya was due to the absence of full in-country retention of values and beneficiation across the entire value chain of the industry.
He said the vision and intention of PETAN was to support the authorities to ensure that all the value existing in the oil industry remain in Nigeria.
The PETAN boss stated that if Nigeria could retain between 60 to 70 per cent oil and gas value chain in the country, the nation stood a better chance of emerging as a top 20 economy in the world.
Ogunsanya further expressed concerns that Nigeria is currently losing a lot due to its inability to produce up to its oil production capacity.
“Essentially, if indigenous firms are involved in extracting oil, taking it to refineries owned by Nigerians for the end products, if we have petrochemicals plants, gas processing plants to support our power plants and run pipelines to connect all those power plants, this country will be top 20 economy in the world.
And we believe very strongly that there is no better prescription of Nigeria’s economic solution more than that,’’.
To reverse the downward trend, Ogunsanya said “Our intention is to support this government and the country to increase production of oil and gas. I presented this vision to the whole house of PETAN exactly a week ago and the vision is very clear. PETAN wants to support Nigeria through innovative means to increase production of oil and gas in the country.
In order to retain value in-country at every stage of oil and gas process, Ogunsanya said a lot of gaps needed to be filled through government policy initiatives and collaboration with industry stakeholders.
Reiterating PETAN’s commitment to support the retention of those values, he acknowledged the presidency’s highly interest in increasing production.
He pointed out that the presidency had given the directives and had formulated a lot of gazettes, stating that PETAN aligns with those initiatives.
“That is the mandate that the President has given. PETAN is going to come up with very innovative ideas on how this is going to be achieved and even low cost approach that is being used in other countries. If you go to Indonesia where some of us have relationships, this is what they are doing. They are looking inwards on how to maximize returns from the resources that they have.”
Owing to the technical know-how of our members and the unique position of the association, the PETAN boss said they are working with the government to create additional value for the country.
He said the group’s commitment and response to the President’s mandate of increasing production was for them to be prepared to deploy all their assets at various locations in the Niger Delta to actualise that mandate.
He acknowledged the challenges facing the industry in Nigeria including funding, logistics and others while stressing the imperative of collaboration and partnership between PETAN and other critical stakeholders to tackle it.
The PETAN chairman also assured NAEC of its commitment to consolidating the long-standing relationship existing between the two bodies.