Kachikwu, in his ministerial address at the 11th edition of the international conference and exhibition organised by the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA) in Abuja, explained the country’s continued dependence on oil alone to run her economy was hurting the country and it would need to quickly refocus attention on her abundant gas resources.
Nigeria is currently going through a full-blown energy crisis, and could experience this for a long time if it fails to articulate a sound policy framework that focuses intensely on its gas sector, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said yesterday.
Kachikwu, in his ministerial address at the 11th edition of the international conference and exhibition organised by the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA) in Abuja, explained the country’s continued dependence on oil alone to run her economy was hurting the country and it would need to quickly refocus attention on her abundant gas resources.
Though represented by his Senior Technical Adviser on Upstream and Gas, Mr. Gbite Adeniji, the minister’s disclosure came at a time the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) stated that the country’s plan to build a transnational gas pipeline with Morocco was gaining momentum with plans to sign the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contract for the project soon.
The minister explained that Nigeria no longer enjoys priority attention from oil and gas investors, adding that southern and eastern African countries now compete especially for investment in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) with Nigeria.
“Secondly, there is a much more constrained international environment with the mounting new LNG suppliers coming on stream globally, and Nigeria is competing for investment with southern and eastern Africa.
“Prices of oil are forecast to fall after 2030, and stay low for a long period after that with a possibility of absolute fall in demand for oil and a related impact on price of gas,” the minister noted.