Summit to attract new oil, gas investors to Nigeria —Project Director

THE Project Director of Nigerian International Petroleum Summit (NIPS), Mr James Shindi, has stated that the summit will attract new investors to the Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

With about 37 billion barrels of oil reserves and 192 trillion standard cubic feet of gas reserves, there is no doubt that Nigeria remains a major petroleum producing and exporting destination in the Gulf of Guinea.

Investigations showed that a bulk of the endowments has not been developed for domestic application and export as a result of many factors, especially limited investment.

It is against this backdrop that the Federal Government’s planned (An African Petroleum Technology and Investment Conference) scheduled for Abuja from February 19 -23, 2018, becomes very important and relevant.

According to Shindi, ‘’As part of the on-going reforms in the sector and as a contribution to the Nigerian and African oil and gas industry, the Federal Government took a formal position to stage an annual National Resource event backed at the highest level and which will create the perfect platform for cross pollination of ideas, networking, business and local content development, government to business, business to business, government to government and other linkages while promoting Nigeria as a business and tourism destination to the global energy community.

‘’The event will be run on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis and be self-funding which explains why the government undertook an international competitive bidding process to select a partner to work with on terms, which the government set out. These are very strict terms but they ensure that the partnership works and all parties deliver on their roles and responsibilities.

‘’The government has demonstrated adequate commitment to this event. For instance, the Federal Executive Council granted approval for the event to take place under the current arrangement. The government also through the Vice president; Professor Yemi Osinbajo, unveiled the event in the presence of 19 Ministers of Petroleum who attended the extra-ordinary meeting of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) in 2017.”

He said the support from the government has been fantastic. There are regular planning meetings, which involve all the government agencies under the Ministry, including the Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, Petroleum Equalisation Fund, PEF, Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board, NCDMB, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF and Petroleum Technology Institute, PTI.