NNPC’s Wunti to Lead Oil Industry Discourse on Energy Security at NAPE Pre- Conference Workshop

Peter Uzoho

The Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investments Management Services (NAPIMS), an arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mr. Bala Wunti, would next Wednesday deliver a keynote address on energy security and transition at the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists’s (NAPE) 2022 Pre-conference workshop.

The event scheduled to hold in Lagos, with the theme: “Energy Security and Transition Strategies: Opportunities and Challenges in Nigeria,” would also have the Executive Commissioner, Exploration and Acreage Management, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Ms. Rose Ndong as part of the speakers.

NAPE in a statement signed by its President, Dr. James Edet and the Publicity Secretary, Mrs. Tunbosun Afolayan, listed the immediate-past Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG) and Chief Executive Officer of First Exploration and Petroleum Company Limited, Mr. Ademola Adeyemi-Bero amongst others as part of the speakers.
According to the association, the rising need for transition towards more sustainable energy sources and the global geopolitics requires a strategic rethink around the energy industry in Nigeria.

It said there was need to define the pathway to be chosen by Nigeria to achieve the sustainable energy, which the populous world deserves.
While observing that the climate change reality was facing everyone in Nigeria today, with desertification in the north and flooding in the south, NAPE said this change called for a crucial need to significantly reduce carbon emissions while ensuring available and affordable electricity.

In response to this new reality, it stated that many countries including Nigeria, have set various net zero carbon emission goals, recalling that at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), Nigeria committed to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060 and had very recently, launched the Energy Transition plan.

NAPE maintained that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) was now in place and Climate Change Act signed into law, saying the oil and gas industry has a role to play towards successful implementation of these regulations and ambitious plan.
The explorationists observed that globally, significant consumers of the hydrocarbon industry were undergoing a massive technological shift towards low or zero carbon energy usage like electric vehicles.

“The ongoing war, global politics, in-country security challenges and asset divestments exposed the impact of energy supply shortage, but also opened more opportunities for indigenous players.

“This trend also positions us to have a rethink on how to develop Nigeria’s under explored gas rich Cretaceous basins and how the energy transition agenda should be pursued.

“NAPE is committed to not only supporting the federal government’s quest to find more oil and gas and attract investors to take the challenge of finding more oil and gas, but fully aligns with the recently launched Nigeria Energy Transition Plan (NEP). It is for this reason that our 2022 Pre-Conference Workshop is dedicated to this goal,” NAPE stated.

Furthermore, it said Nigeria’s energy security issue cuts across supply disruption, availability and affordability of electricity, crude oil price volatility and energy sustainability concerns.

However, the association said the speakers in the Pre-conference workshop would discuss this increasingly relevant issues on Energy Security and Transition Strategies, with a major focus on understanding the dynamics of gas development and global energy transition processes while leveraging opportunities, partnerships, government fiscal and regulations, decades of oil and gas industry experience, and stakeholder engagement necessary to achieve sustainable energy sources.

NAPE added, “The outcome of this workshop will outline how Nigeria will adapt her policies and diversify our energy portfolio while taking advantage of our in-country capacity and natural resource base from oil and gas to renewables for the future sustainable economic growth of this country.  

“A communique of the proceedings will be issued and presented the Federal Republic of Nigeria as our expert contribution towards the actualisation of the nation’s Energy Transition Plan.

“The Pre- Conference workshop will set the tone for the entire Conference. It is worthy of note that key pieces of legislation in the oil and gas industry such as the Marginal Fields Act and Deep-water Act were based on templates that were distilled from Previous NAPE Pre- Conference Workshops.”