FG to Set Up Oil and Gas Investment Centre
The Federal Government says it is working on setting up an oil and gas Investment centre which would act as a one-stop shop for oil and gas investment in Nigeria.
The Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Kamoru Busari, made the disclosure at the Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, which held in Abuja with the theme,”Funding the Nigerian Energy Mix for Sustainable Economic Growth.”
He said, “The task before every one of us now is to breathe life to the flesh already built by the act to play our roles as regulator and opportunity enablers.
“This will be through direct collaboration with all relevant stakeholders in the operationalisation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to prevent impediments in operations and processes.”
According to Busari, this was necessitated by the government desire to begin to create business models that would reduce the export of crude oil while increasing export of value-added petroleum products.
In an industry address, the Deputy Managing Director, Deep Water, TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Limited, Victor Bandele, said that TotalEnergies is willing to partner the Federal Government towards expanding electricity access to 80 per cent of Nigerians.
Noting Federal Government’s projection in 2030 and 2040, 80 per cent and 85 per cent of Nigerians, respectively, will have access to electricity while the percentage will be 28 per cent and 38 per cent for access to clean cooking, he added that the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that about 445 billion USD is required in investment to achieve the government’s energy supply targets. This, Bandele said, is what makes funding the Nigerian energy mix for sustainable economic growth, very important.
Expressing TotalEnergies’ commitment to sustainability and energies in all its totality, he emphasized that diversification to cleaner energy comes with a lot of benefits.
“Diversification to Cleaner Energy offers a lot of benefits. The Federal Government aims to generate 30 per cent of its total energy from renewable sources by 2030. It is a major commitment for an economy that depends almost solely on fossil fuels.
“We are a willing and competent partner here and will be happy to work with the government to achieve this important objective as long as the business environment is friendly, he quipped.
Citing the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook (2019), he said that although Africa is a driver of global trends, the continent suffers from lack of access.
“There is no doubt that Africa has become increasingly influential in shaping global energy trends. However, there is a critical need to address the persistent lack of electricity and clean cooking as well as the unreliability of electricity supply. Also, the momentum driving current policy and investment plans, falls short of meeting the energy needs of Africa’s teeming population,” Bandele said.
Speaking on a panel session, the Managing Director of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Philip Mshelbila, said that the Federal Government needs a yearly investment of about $2 billion with counterpart funding from the private sector on infrastructure to achieve the objective of the Decade of Gas initiative.
“If you take the infrastructure side, specific pipelines, interconnections and so on have been identified -the Network Code and all of that, and what needs to be done to ensure that those things happen,” Mshelbila said.
“There is an investment that is going to be needed by government, over one to $2 billion every year with counterpart party private sector investment that is also going to be needed every year in order to ensure that that gets delivered.”
