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The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Malam Mele Kyari, said that Nigeria’s oil/gas industry would have a clear fiscal landscape for operators to be able to plan beginning June 2020.
Kyari made this known at a breakout session for Chief Executive officers in the industry at the on- going Nigeria International Petroleum summit in Abuja, Tuesday.
He spoke on ” Investment to achieve economic sustainability.” The NNPC boss said that the need for a new fiscal framework work has become imperative as operators would be willing to embrace changing laws.
Kyari said that Nigeria’s drive towards transiting to renewable and green energy would be frustrated by the epileptic power situation in the country hence the need to invest on service improvement. He argued that discussions around encouraging the use of renewable energy should also focus on providing alternatives to addressing the epileptic power situation in Nigeria and across Africa.
“We have to resolve the issue of electricity so that we can talk about the renewables in the future; so that we can reduce the use of fossil fuels that has high impact on the environment.
“However, we believe that with time, there would be less consumption of fossil fuels. “For us here, as a country, what we need to do is to transit into getting power to our homes, to our industries, to take advantage of the enormous gas resources that we have in this country.
“Over 200 trillion standard cubic feet of gas, which everybody knows; but we know that in the books, there are potentials for additional 600 trillion and growing.
“This is an asset that we have and which we can rely on to build and develop this country. To take gas to the export market, and particularly, to develop our domestic market,” he said
According to him, doing this means bringing prosperity to West Africa, as 70 per cent of West African resides in Nigeria.
Also speaking, President, Nigerian Gas Association, Mrs Audrey Joe-Ezigbo, lamented that current uncertainties in the gas sector were not making the business attractive to investors.
She said that there was need to fix the infrastructural challenge in the gas sector by encouraging more investment inflow.
Mrs Joe -Ezigbo added that the funds needed to fix the infrastructure would not be attracted through removal of profit motive.
She however advocated a better commercial framework to encourage investment across the gas value chain, adding that the government has to do more to ensure that illiqudity in the gas sector was addressed and in good time too.
In his intervention, Chief Executive Officer of Chevron Nigeria, Mr Jeff Ewing, said that the company was working with the NNPC to deliver cleaner diesel from its Escravos Gas to Liquid, EGTL, plant to the Nigerian market. He, however, noted that because the Nigerian market was used to darker diesel colour, the company would be adding colour to the diesel.
