Stakeholders proffer oil sector solutions to address economic challenges
Stakeholders in the Nigeria oil and gas industry has advocated for a renewed push for oil and gas operations to help the country navigate her way out of the current economy headwind.
They maintains that since crude oil activities is 95 percent of export dependent and account for the largest earner of dollars for Nigeria, it is only proper that managers of the economy encourage the needed investment in order to improve revenue base which would in turn facilitate import of raw materials to support other sectors to grow the economy.
Technically for our population which is an estimated 180 million, Nigeria shouldn’t be doing less than 5million barrel per day says Dolapo Oni, head Energy research, Ecobank Development Company (EDC) Nigeria Limited at an economic event recently.
He noted that for Nigeria to achieve improvement in the economy, oil production per barrel a day should be at least 5 million.
Currently according to figures from the NNPC, Nigeria is producing at estimated over 2 million barrel of oil per day.
Oni observed that the Nigeria economy is very diverse saying that Oil and gas as at 2016 was only 7 percent of GDP, but the same oil and gas is 95 percent of Nigeria export. “If a sector that is 7 percent of the GDP is generating 95 percent of your export, that means the rest of the country GDP which is 93 percent, is generating 5 percent of export. That whole percent is not as competitive or productive as it ought to be internationally”.
Analysts argue that federal government optimism that the oil and gas sector would recover this year through plan to resuscitate the four refineries to save Nigeria huge foreign exchange loss is a right step that should be followed to a logical conclusion
The federal government should urgently finalise the passage of the PIB says Emeka Ene, former president, Nigeria Society of Petroleum Engineers, adding that until we have an aligned PIB, there may not be substantial investment in the sector.
Muda Yusuf, Director General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) was quoted to have said that in order to ease the pressure of petroleum products imports on the foreign reserves and the forex market, domestic refining of petroleum products should the nation’s priority.
To him, public private partnership model for the development of new refineries and the Brownfield investment initiatives should be accelerated”,
“Private investors in domestic refining of petroleum products should be given the desired incentives to put an end to importation of petroleum products in 2017”, he said.
KELECHI EWUZIE