Cooperate to be more influential on government policy, expert urges

Industry bodies within the oil and gas sector have been called upon to cooperate so as to be more influential on government policy and action.

This call was made by Babs Omotowa, managing director/chief executive, Nigeria LNG Limited, while delivering a keynote address at the April edition of the Petroleum Club meeting in Lagos.

According to Omotowa, industry collaboration and acting together is needed with a sense of urgency as the sector is faced with daunting challenges, especially with the slide in global oil prices, as such collaboration should go beyond industry issues to standing with each other in difficult times.

“When NLNG was being harassed by NIMASA and stopped from exporting its LNG cargoes for 21 days, not a single industry group reached out to us to find out how we were handling the challenges,” Omotowa said.

The NLNG chief executive said the key challenges facing the industry include the uncertainty surrounding the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), Joint Venture (JV) budget/funding, projects/contract approval duration, Production Sharing Contract (PSC), reconciliation/gas ownership, insecurity, vandalism, among others.

On the NLNG success story, he said the company had delivered $90 billion in revenue since 1999, $33 billion dividend to Federal Government, $21 billion for JV gas purchase, $6 billion in taxes. In addition, he said the average price for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) dropped from N12,000 to N3,500 per 12kg after their intervention. He said the critical success story factors for NLNG include its independence, which shielded it from government and political interference, financial capacity, technical partnership, market driven and good corporate governance.

He said NLNG was planning to introduce two additional trains to its six existing trains at its operational base on Bonny Island. The new trains are the seventh train that had been on the drawing board for over 10 years and the new Train 8, adding that the new Train 8 would be developed together with Train 7.

He called on the Petroleum Club, Lagos, to lead the vanguard of other industry bodies to become more influential on government policy and action in the oil and gas sector.