By Emmanuel Nduka
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, on Tuesday disclosed that up to 62 percent of Nigerians lack access to electricity, and another 90 percent lack access to modern cooking gas.
The Minister who reeled out these statistics while speaking at the NOG Conference holding in Abuja, however, noted that the Federal Government is working on initiatives to tackle the problem by harnessing the country’s gas reserves to electrify Nigeria.
“It is worthy to note that the Federal Government is working to provide enabling environment which is necessary to realise the full potentials of the gas sector.
“This include the development of infrastructure and systems such as the OP3 gas pipeline, the AKK gas pipeline… and other transmission networks,” he added.
He added that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) will further provide new and attractive terms for participation in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector.
Also speaking at the event, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, advocated for a global conversation on the need to adopt gas as the new form of energy, especially in the light of global transition from fossil fuels.
He noted that the current problems of short supply of energy products in Nigeria, is traceable to lack of purposeful investments in the sector within the last five years.
Harping on the capacity of indigenous industry players, Abdulrazak Isa, Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG), noted that the indigenous players are “ready and capable” of taking over in the wake of ongoing divestment of International Oil Companies.
He added that the IPPG has spent up to N20bn to grow divestment assets within the last 10 years.
While calling for the support of Government and other private players, he noted that the NOGIC Act has further strengthened the Oil and Gas industry, and complemented Government efforts.
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