President Must Review PIA to Uphold Nigeria’s Interest, Says NGEP Chairman
L-R: Dr. Muhammed Ibrahim, Chairman, National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP); Ms Laurie Schmidt, General Manager, Supply Chain, Shell Companies Nigeria; Afolabi Ojo, Project Manager, Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited (SPDC); Me Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB); Mallam Isa Madibbo, Chairman, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission Board (NUPRC), and Mr Chris Ijeli, MD/CEO, Nivafer Engineering and Construction Limited, at the Unveiling and Load-Out ceremony of HP fuel gas treatment skid for Assa North-Ohaji gas project, at Nivafer Facility in Lagos, on Wednesday.
•Says Nigerian industrialists pay 10 times higher for gas than its export price
Dike Onwuamaeze
The Chairman, National Gas Expansion Program (NGEP), Dr. Mohammed M. Ibrahim, has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to show clear interest in Nigeria’s gas sector and urgently carry out a serious review of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) of 2021 to ensure that it would serve the country’s best interests.
Ibrahim, gave the call yesterday, in Lagos, as the keynote speaker at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (LCCI) “Autogas Opportunity Fair,” which was organised by the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Group of the LCCI. He warned that if the government failed review the PIA and its policies Nigeria might end up importing natural gas just as it is currently importing cooking gas.
He said: “We came out with the Gas Master Plan (GMP) in 2000 when we started the oil and gas implementation reform. But the International Oil Companies (IOCs) resisted it because some of the recommendations were so fundamental to their interest and they started working on the legislatures to scuttle the report and delayed it until 2021 with the passage of the Petroleum Industrial Act (PIA).
“When I saw the version of the PIA that former President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law, I wept for my country and for the generations yet unborn in this country.
“That is why President Tinubu has no choice but to review the PIA 2021 because it will never deliver the Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. It will never ever deliver what the country requires. And that is why its implementation at best has been very tepid.”
He said that it would serve Nigeria better if the country should focus more on adding value to the natural gas in the country rather than exporting natural gas in its raw form.
He stated that the NGEP was created to serve as a catalyst for adding value to the vast natural gas that Nigeria is endowed with.
“Essentially the NGEP is not interested in taking our molecule for export. We are not interested in the brass LNG. We are not interested in the LNG Train 7, 8 etc.
“We are interested in LNG for Nigeria’s utilisation. We are interested in the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for Nigeria. We are interested in LPG for Nigeria. Our focus is to ensure that every single molecule we have is produced in the country, utilised in the country, transformed in the country and only the finished product is moved out. That is what that has made the NGEP to be very unpopular.
“If we have 100 per cent of raw materials for making LPG cylinders produced in country. Won’t that improve our foreign reserve? It will.
“But the biggest of them all is the gas based industry. We have a programme around natural gas that will enable every raw material we need for the petrochemicals, paints, insecticide, pesticide all the fertiliser for agriculture production.”
According to him, Nigeria came out with the Gas Master Plan in 2000 when it became clear that the manner the country has mismanaged its oil resources should not be transferred to the gas resources.
The chairman of NGEP said: “We came up with the Gas Master Plan as far back as 2000 to add value to our gas resources instead of just exporting it. Even Libya is looking for Nigeria’s gas.
“The German President was with President Tinubu three days ago looking for our gas. This means that there is something unique about our gas that we are not seeing.
“We are celebrating LNG Train 7 when a woman in the rural area with her child has no access to gas. And we are taking the entire gas that we produce for export. I have asked why we should be exporting gas at a cheaper rate than the Nigerian industrialists are buying domestically for production, electricity generation and transportation.
“But I was told that we need foreign exchange. But I said what if we use those gas molecules to manufacture fertilizer, textiles, and pharmaceuticals, plastics to satisfy Nigeria’s domestic demand and export finished products and earn dollars. But no! We are still exporting natural gas in its raw form just as in days of slave trade and colonialism when we exported humans and raw commodities.
“We celebrate earning $1 billion from LNG when we could have earned $100 billion from the same molecule. We can export crude oil but not natural gas that can give us raw materials for petrochemicals, fertilisers, textiles, pharmaceuticals manufacturing and lean gas for power generation.
“Natural gas is far more important to us than crude oil. 44 per cent of our production is for export market. What we use in the country is 19 per cent. How can we have electricity when all we use in Nigeria is 19 per cent and we pay at home more than 10 times the price we sell our gas out of the country. This is the sad thing about our gas situation.”
