Yemisi Izuora
The Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE, has said that Nigeria has not taken bold initiatives to harness its gas potentials and therefore government should provide the enabling environment for the industry to achieve its growth potentials.
Addressing the media in Lagos ahead of the upcoming Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition, NAICE, Nigeria Council chairman of the SPE, Mr. Chikezie Nwosu, said that with a
right policy framework, will grow the country’s present 180 trillion cubic feet, tcf, gas reserve to 600 tcf.
He said, “Combined with the right policy framework, 2019 should be the reset year for the oil and gas industry, where we start the growth of gas production to over 20 billion standard cubic feet per day, oil production to over 4 million barrels per day, reserves growth in oil to 40 billion barrels and conversion of a significant part of the estimated 600 Trillion standard cubic feet of prospective gas resources to contingent resources / reserves, exponential growth of refining capacity (and hence less reliance on subsidies on imported products), within a decade.
He said these are not impossible goals, but we must start now, as we are running out of time.
Nwosu stressed that the oil and gas sector can serve as enabler for Nigeria government diversification programme, but the sector needs the right business environment for the industry to thrive to accelerate the much-needed diversification.
” Policy that enables this growth is clearly critical, but long-term stability of the business environment is also important. Policy will serve to trigger the first tranche of investments, but longer term growth in these investments will only come where Nigeria has a stable investment climate.
We must earn the respect and trust of local and international investments”, he enthused.
The SPE chairman advocated for strong
partnership and collaboration between the indigenous companies and international oil companies, IOCs such that local capacity could be strengthened.
This he said because the indigenous firms are probably better positioned to influence government policies, while the IOCs have the access to investment capital, technology and the right corporate governance structures.
He said the Society is expecting all four aspects of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB to be passed by the National Assembly in 2018, assented to by the President and passed as an Act before the 2019 elections.
“We also expect the 7 MUST WINS to start ‘winning’.
The oil price is at a much higher level than predicted a few years back, but we must unlearn the bad practices that led to high unit technical costs when the oil price hovered at $100 per barrel. The Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and the group general manager, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC are driving for unit technical costs to come to the range of $15- $18 per barrel from highs of $35 per barrel in the past, and the industry has already come to levels of $23 per barrel.