Kachikwu: Nigeria Currently in Full-blown Energy Crisis

• FG to sign FEED contract for transnational pipeline with Morocco

Chineme Okafor in Abuja

Nigeria is currently going through a full-blown energy crisis, and could experience this for a long time if it fails to articulate a sound policy framework that focuses intensely on its gas sector, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said yesterday.

Kachikwu, in his ministerial address at the 11th edition of the international conference and exhibition organised by the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA) in Abuja, explained the country’s continued dependence on oil alone to run her economy was hurting the country and it would need to quickly refocus attention on her abundant gas resources.

Though represented by his Senior Technical Adviser on Upstream and Gas, Mr. Gbite Adeniji, the minister’s disclosure came at a time the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) stated that the country’s plan to build a transnational gas pipeline with Morocco was gaining momentum with plans to sign the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contract for the project soon.

The minister explained that Nigeria no longer enjoys priority attention from oil and gas investors, adding that southern and eastern African countries now compete especially for investment in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) with Nigeria.

“Secondly, there is a much more constrained international environment with the mounting new LNG suppliers coming on stream globally, and Nigeria is competing for investment with southern and eastern Africa.

“Prices of oil are forecast to fall after 2030, and stay low for a long period after that with a possibility of absolute fall in demand for oil and a related impact on price of gas,” the minister noted.

Kachikwu stated that there were also domestic challenges the country has to clear to develop its gas industry and overcome the energy crisis it is going through.

According to him, “Then, there is the challenging domestic environment with security of supply risks; the sector governance and business environment issues. We could add more to these headwinds based on the recent reports of the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the World Bank and IMF which have made it their business to track our micro economics.

“Based on these headwinds, Nigeria has a challenging future and must therefore broaden its economy beyond oil hence the thrust of the gas policy is that we need to refocus our economy using the comparative advantage of our gas towards achieving gas-based industrialisation.”

In his remarks, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, explained that a feasibility study for the Nigeria and Morocco transnational gas line has been done, thus paving the way for the project’s FEED contract to be signed.

Baru said: “In June 2018, Nigeria signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kingdom of Morocco on a regional gas pipeline that will supply gas to most of West African countries and extend it all the way to Morocco and Europe. The feasibility study has been completed and we are about to commence the optimisation of the study outcomes which would be followed closely with the FEED.”

He added that the challenges of the country’s power sector has continued to ensure that up to 500 metric million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of gas meant to generate about 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity is shut in.

In his opening remarks at the conference, the President of NGA, Mr. Dada Thomas, said Nigeria could be better served with a regional and not just a national gas development plan, with countries around the West African region tapping from gas lines and volumes from the country.