Yemisi Izuora
President Muhammadu Buhari, alongside Vice President Yemi Osibajo and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva will feature in the upcoming “Decade of Gas” conference and high-level networking session scheduled for March 29, 2021.
The event, with the theme, “Towards a Gas-powered Economy by 2030” is a pre-summit conference of the 2021 Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) with Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) as sponsors, will also serve as the formal launch of the Federal Government’s initiative to declare January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2030 as “the Decade of Gas Development for Nigeria”.
“The mission of the federal government is to diversify the nation’s oil and gas industry through strategic exploitation of our vast Natural Gas resources”, says Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, adding that the Buhari administration will not relent in its efforts to make gas a key part of the country’s energy mix and a major alternative energy for industrial, transportation and domestic uses.
The event will also feature a session with the current head of all the key associations in the oil and gas value chain; Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Nigerian Gas Association (NGA), Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationist (NAPE), Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PTEAN) and Nigerian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA).
“We are bringing all the stakeholders under one roof to chart the way forward for gas and contribute to this laudable government initiative of transforming the country into an industrialised nation driven by gas. No stakeholder is left behind from the executive, legislators, MDAs to International and Indigenous Oil Companies”, says James Shindi, Chief Executive of Brevity Anderson, organisers of the conference.
The Nigeria gas sector holds enormous investment potential from a resource perspective with over 180Tcf of discovered natural gas reserves.
It will be noted that the Federal Government of Nigeria has demonstrated its commitment towards the objective of transforming the country into an industrialised nation driven by gas, through policies and projects like the NLNG T7 Project, the National Gas Expansion Programme, Autogas policy and the construction of the 614km Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline.
These initiatives and projects are expected to stimulate economic growth, further improve Nigeria’s energy mix, drive investments, and provide jobs in the country.
Investments in gas will significantly reduce the nation’s carbon footprint as it is cheaper, cleaner and more available thereby conserving the environment into the future and improving our quality of life.