Engr. Chichi Emenike Ag MD Neconde
Nigeria’s quest to build a thriving gas economy will remain stalled unless government liberalizes pricing and creates a truly bankable, paying gas market that guarantees returns for investors, Acting Managing Director and Gas Asset Manager at Neconde Energy Limited, Engr. Chichi Emenike has warned.
Engr. Chichi Emenike, who spoke during a panel session with the theme “Market Liberalization: Performance, Public Value & Commercial Opportunities” at the Association of Energy Correspondents of Nigeria, NAEC, Energy Conference 2026, said investors are not asking for super-profits, but for reasonable, predictable returns.
“No investor is doing Red Cross. No investor is doing charity. Everybody doing investment expects to recover principal plus X,” she said.
She added: “If you do your economics and expect payback in 5 years, you should be protected to get it in 5 years plus X. If you don’t have a bankable paying market, those 5 years becomes 7 years, then 10 years.”
According to Emenike, Nigeria’s domestic gas market is not yet ready to attract the scale of capital needed for its Decade of Gas ambition. The biggest constraints, she noted, are infrastructure deficits and price controls.
“The market today is not particularly ready. The biggest gap is infrastructure. There are not enough pipelines, and the market is not well-catalogued,” she said.
She explained that the industry is trying to cope with alternatives like Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, and Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, for last-mile delivery, but even those options remain a challenge because most of the gas is still stranded in the ground.
Producing gas, she stressed, is a capital-intensive, dollarised operation. From drilling deep wells in the Niger Delta, to laying pipelines, to building processing facilities that strip gas into dry gas, LPG and condensates, every step requires massive investment.
She stated: “Funding in the gas market is contingent on a bankable market. You want paying customers.
“Yet, despite this huge cost profile, the government still seeks to dictate the price at which gas is sold, without regard for how the investor sourced funding, the tenure of loans, or the foreign exchange exposure.
“The government doesn’t know where the investor borrowed money from, what the tenure is, whether it’s 5 years or 16 years, or who funded it. Everything in gas operations, from drilling to maintenance, is dollar-denominated. There is hardly any input sourced locally.”
Engr. Emenike called for full liberalization of the gas market, noting that what has been done so far with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and other reforms is helpful but insufficient to change investor behaviour from risk-aversion to business confidence.
“The market still needs to be fully liberalized. What has been done so far helps investors start behaving like business people, not like people running away because they are scared,” she said.
Her position aligns with growing industry consensus that creating bankable projects, with transparent contracts, clear offtake frameworks and payment security, is essential to unlock capital, expand energy access, and drive Nigeria’s energy transition.
“Gas is revenue, gas is jobs, gas can guarantee us economic security, but that will only happen if we have a paying market,” Emenike said.
The NAEC Energy Conference 2026 brought together policymakers, regulators, and operators from oil, gas, and power and provided strategies for the sector’s sustainable growth.
Other members of the panel include, Chief Tunji Oyebanji, Former Chairman of MEMAN, Mr. Clement Isong, CEO, Major Energies Marketers Association of Nigeria (MEMAN), Emmanuel Omuojine, Managing Director of Rainoil Limited and Engr Emeka Ene, Chairman, Oida Energy Group who moderated the session.
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