Osinbajo to Deliver Keynote Address at Oil & Gas Roundtable

Efforts at creating a more conducive environment for Nigeria’s oil and gas sector will receive fresh impetus tomorrow as Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will lead an array dignitaries among whom are, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Yakubu Dogara, industry experts and other dignitaries to a brainstorming session in Asaba, the Delta State capital.

Professor Osinbajo is expected to deliver the keynote address at the event billed to take place at the prestigious Grand Hotel while Minister of Petroleum, State, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, will present a paper.

The forum is a one-day event with the theme: ‘Peace and Sustainable Development in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Areas,’ organised by the leading advocacy group, Nigeria Entrepreneur (Summit and Honours) NESH, for short.

NESH founder, Emeka Ugwu-oju had stated that the event had become necessary to create a road map for optimising the benefits of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon resources against the background of not only declining crude prices but the decision by most European countries to migrate from fossil fuels for automobiles to other alternatives.

He noted that this cannot be achieved without peace in the Niger Delta, a factor necessary for driving down costs and building stakeholder confidence in the environment.

He said: “It is in that regard that Nigeria and Entrepreneurship: Summit & Honors (NESH) team, has made the main theme of this event to be “Peace and Sustainable Development of Nigeria Oil and Gas Producing areas” and packaged a special session to bring together key and impactful stakeholders to discuss and device a new template for rapid development of the oil and gas producing areas that will reinforce and complement existing institutions and roadmaps, through a more robust private and public sector partnership.

“Another session at the roundtable will also have experts discussing the subject of Mini/Modular refineries which is a key item on the 16 point demand presented to the federal government by the Pan Niger Delta Forum as necessary condition for sustainable peace in the oil and gas producing areas,” he said.

Top oil industry players, finance experts, investors and notable advocacy groups have all confirmed their participation at the event to be hosted by the Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.

The choice of the Delta State capital is seen as a masterstroke aimed at showing key stakeholder groups in the Niger Delta sub-region that the development of the region will remain on the front-burner until it is settled. Areas of emphasis include infrastructure, industrialization, local content management, capacity building and funding of small and medium scale enterprises in the region.

As part of the event, NESH has incorporated in the program interviews with high net worth Nigerians, to provide a broader knowledge pool for result-oriented stakeholder engagement in the area.

The event will be rounded off with a dinner at which ‘thank you” plaques will be presented to 10 private and public sector individuals for their roles in bringing about the relative peace prevailing in the region.