Renewable energy: NIMASA preparing Nigeria beyond crude oil —Peterside

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has emphasised its readiness to develop policies that will see to a smooth transition from the regime of intense wet cargo operations, which is the major source of income for the maritime sector in Nigeria, to the inevitable era of renewable energy which may see less activities in crude oil exploration and exploitation in the country.

The Director General of NIMASA Dr Dakuku Peterside stated this when delivering a paper at the Africa Regional Workshop  with the theme,  the effect of Global Energy Transformation at one of the side workshops during the just concluded Offshore Technology Conference, OTC in Houston Texas.

The NIMASA DG noted that though, the maritime sector in Nigeria benefitted extensively from oil exploration and exploitation in Nigeria including limited technological and skill transfer, the time to see both opportunities and associated risk of the gradual shift towards renewable energy from fossil fuel for the maritime sector is now. He said that there may be no need for huge vessels, for intercontinental shipment of both crude and refined products in years to come, thus the need for a new logistics dynamics to bring about logistics diversification.

• We are going back to Lake Chad in full force ―NNPC MD

“We at NIMASA are working to create a new framework to maximize opportunities provided by renewable energy. So the world does not leave us behind.

As a Maritime Administration we are taking conscious steps to put the necessary building blocks for an era of renewable energy when exploration and exploitation of oil and gas and all associated logistics will no longer play a major role. We propose policies to promote transition to clean and renewable energy. We have accepted the inevitability of renewable energy in years to come “ he said.

Dakuku further stated, there was the need for all African countries to invest in research so that the advent of renewable energy would not take the continent by surprise.