Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil)
…Africa has a population of over 1.5 billion people and the continent has the market.
…FG will support Dangote Refinery.
…Africa has crude oil deposits of over 100 billion bpd with 600 tcf of gas.
-Felix Douglas
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the OTL Africa Downstream Energy Week, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri commended OTL team for sustaining the momentum for 19 years.
In his words: “in Nigeria, it is a difficult environment to survive for 19 years; clearly, it shows the amount of effort and energy with a lot of finances and ideas to ensure it is sustained.”
The Minister said data has shown that Africa has enough markets and by 2024, the continent imported $120 billion worth of hydrocarbon resources.
Africa has limited financial capacity and distribution network, most of its money still goes outside the shores of the continent.
Nigeria’s target is how it can retain the proportion of its value. Together with other countries, it has launched West Africa market and the idea is to make Nigeria a refining hub.
The entire continent is waiting for Nigeria. Whatever the countries does it affects the sub-region.
The International Energy Agency that was a proponent of net zero that threatened value of oil and gas resources has changed.
According to the Minister, in 2025 the agency report of United Nations, says the world needs to invest $540 billion a year to avoid energy crisis by the year 2050. The world needs to invest in oil and gas, hydrocarbon resources $540 billion surprisingly; these were the proponents of net zero.
“Those who are telling you to abandon your oil and gas resources, you should be careful of them because the world population is expected to grow another 2 billion by the year 2050 this constitute over 50% of the global energy demand.”
If the world is to avoid energy crisis, it has to invest $700 billion in upstream, midstream and downstream.
The focus has always been energy transition. It is good news for Africa.
Africa has a population of over 1.5 billion people and the continent has the market.
Lokpobiri stated further that Dangote Refinery is expanded with 1.4 million which will not only serve Nigeria; it will serve Africa and the entire world.
The federal government will support Dangote Refinery to actualize its ambition.
Since President removes subsidy, it brought sanity into the industry and downstream can only grow when the right business environment is created for private sector to bring in capital and invest.
The Minister added that regulation and liberalization of the downstream sector brought healthy competition and price stability. There is availability, affordability and accessibility.
In fact the country would have been in trouble with sharing over 2 trillion expected to provide needed infrastructure that would have been used as subsidy that wasn’t beneficial to Nigerians.
There were no demonstrations in Nigeria but it happened in neighbouring countries which clearly showed that basically the country was subsidizing the entire sub-region.
It was a bold decision that brought needed changes.
Africa has crude oil deposits of over 100 billion barrels per day with 600 trillion cubic feet of gas.
“If we explore all our hydrocarbon resources, we’re only adding 1% of global emissions to what we’re adding today. We contribute only about 3% of global emissions.”
The country is still largely depended on oil and gas.
There is enough market in the downstream and investment should transcend all the value chain.
Africa to find a solution like energy finances will be for upstream, mainstream and mainstream downstream.
Comment here