Nigeria Oil Sector Accounts for 24% Of FDI In Africa
The Nigeria oil and gas industry is still a major investment destination in Africa grossing over 24.8percent of foreign direct investments coming to the African continent, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, has said.
According to Dr Baru, out of about $194billion capital investment flow into Africa for the period 2018 to 2025, $48.04bn came to the Nigerian oil and gas sector for various development projects.
He stated this during a keynote address while declaring open the 2019 edition of the Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) Conference and International Exhibition at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.
Baru informed that the oil and gas industry was an essential building block in the nation’s economic growth while speaking on the theme of this year’s NOG Conference “Promoting Investment and Collaboration in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry.”
The NNPC helmsman stated that from the Upstream to the Midstream and Downstream sub-sectors, the Nigerian oil and gas industry was replete with massive investment opportunities.
“Nigeria holds about 2.2 percent of global oil reserves. Our crude oil reserves have grown steadily from about 22 billion barrels in 1999 to 37.5billion barrels in 2018. Nigeria is home to the second largest crude oil reserves in Africa after Libya.
“Our crude oil production currently hovers around 2.2-2.3 million barrels of oil per day (bopd). This was bolstered by the coming on stream of the Egina Field in December 2018 and which has currently ramped up to 200,000bopd,” Baru stated.
On the gas side, he said Nigeria has the 9th largest gas reserves in the world with an estimated proven and probable gas reserves of 201Trillion cubic feet (Tcf) and an upside potential of 600Tcf.
“In terms of gas production and utilization, Nigeria averages about 8.4bscfd. While only 18percent of the production is consumed in the domestic market (Power, Industries and WAGP), 43percent is exported as LNG, 32percent is re-injected for enhanced oil recovery and other operational uses like fuel gas while 7percent of total gas production is currently being flared”, he said.
The GMD however, stressed that the reserve figures by themselves did not mean anything unless investment in their development and production was driven in a sustainable and collaborative manner.
According to him, to encourage the existing players in the industry, particularly the traditional Joint Venture partners, NNPC undertook to settle all outstanding cash call arrears amounting to $5billion in 2016.
“Till date, we have defrayed over $2billion. All these efforts are geared towards sustaining investment and renewing investor confidence”, he stated.
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