Lack of investments in the oil and gas sector is the major factor why Nigeria can’t meet the oil production quota allocated to Nigeria by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the federal government has said.
Minister of State for Petroleum Timipre Sylvia disclosed this on Wednesday at the ongoing CERA Week in Houston, Texas.
He said the lack of investments was due to the recent spate of exits by International Oil Companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil from Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Nigeria’s OPEC quota is pegged at about 1.8 million barrels per day but in the last few years, the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels per day.
Sylva said the speed with which IOCs were withdrawing investments in hydrocarbon exploitation had contributed significantly to Nigeria’s inability to meet its OPEC target.
He was quoted in a statement issued in Abuja by his media aide, Haratius Egua, as saying, “The rate at which investments were taken away was too fast.
“Lack of investments in the oil and gas sector contributed to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC quota. We are not able to get the needed investments to develop the sector and that affected us.”
The minister also cited security challenges as another major factor that contributed to the lack of significant growth of the sector, adding that the drive towards renewable energy by climate enthusiasts had discouraged funding for the industry.
He, however, called for a change of attitude, stressing that in decades to come hydrocarbon would continue to play a central role in meeting the energy needs of the world.
Sylva said, “There are about 600 million people in Africa without access to power and of that number the majority live in Nigeria.
“And of the over 900 million people without access to power in the world, the majority live in Africa. So how do we provide access to power for these people if you say we should not produce gas?
“We believe that gas is the way to go. We believe that gas is the way forward and the one access to power. We need to have an inclusive energy transition programme.”
The minister added, “Yes, we believe in energy transition but we as Africans have our own peculiar problems and we are saying that our energy transition should be focused on gas to bridge the energy gap. This is what we have been saying.”
