Ex-NLNG CEO, Attah, Advises FG on IOC Assets Divestment

Peter Uzoho

As Nigeria continues losing the opportunity to attract the needed foreign direct investmentS (FDIs) into the oil and gas industry, the immediate past Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG), Mr. Tony Attah, has called on the federal government to halt further delay in concluding the pending asset divestment transactions among some international oil companies (IOCs)  and independent oil firms.

 He also advised President Bola Tinubu to be more bullish in adjusting ministerial portfolios to focus on full integration of the oil, gas and power portfolios under one minister to be called the Minister of Energy

 Attah made the submissions in a paper he delivered in Lagos at the 80th Birthday Dinner of a former Petroleum Minister, Chief Don Etiebet, which was organised by the Petroleum Club.

The title of the paper, which was made available to  THISDAY, was “The Future of Gas, Nigerian Economy and The Global Energy Transition.”  

He said Nigeria should  declare a state of emergency in the oil and gas sector to be able to attract the much needed focus and drive to unleash the country’s upstream oil and gas resource base, which will enable more midstream development projects including the now famous Floating LNG projects.

He said Nigeria has to take advantage of the slim window of opportunity, occasioned by the growth in energy demand and the disruption of the energy systems in Europe.

Attah, who is now the Managing Director of Renaissance Africa Energy Company, a consortium of five independent producers buying all of Shell’s onshore assets in Nigeria, added that the country needs a vibrant and active oil and gas sector with ambition anchored on commitment and agility to quickly convert the potential reserves to value for the nation.

According to him, for Nigeria’s economy to grow and recover from the current weak position and revenue crisis, the oil and gas industry must succeed, being the largest contributor to national foreign exchange earnings. 

Attah stated: “For Nigeria to grow and achieve sustainable cross-sectoral diversification and industrial catalysation, the oil and gas sector must grow, and we can confirm the correlation with a simple fact check on the times we have had economic booms being directly linked to when the industry enjoys a boom. 

“It is thus, not out of place to say that the oil and gas industry is the nerve center, if not the brain box of Nigeria’s economy.

“The fastest way of resolving the ongoing revenue crisis is to revitalize and galvanize the oil and gas sector by accelerating the implementation of the recently approved executive orders and the ongoing IOC divestments to restore confidence and stability in the industry.”

 He noted that Nigeria cannot achieve the much-needed industrialisation and national development without unleashing the potential of the oil industry.

 He stressed the need to scale up domestic gas development alongside gas for export. 

 With the recently launched national programme on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Attah opined that Nigeria needs to be more deliberate to include Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and grow the national domestic gas capacity by at least doubling the current gross daily production level to about five billion cubic feet per day (5bcf/d), in the near term. 

This, he explained, will catalyse the power sector, unleash manufacturing by bringing down the cost of manufacturing by over 50 per cent, thus stimulating the economy and creating the much-needed jobs and employments through large scale industries and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).  

To underpin and future proof Nigeria’s  economy from the vagaries of the energy transition and the changing energy dynamics, Attah emphasised the need to attract massive investments for gas development. 

He said these massive investments and the ready availability of gas will not only galvanise the economy, but  will also energize it, adding that the move will also change the narrative on availability of power, availability of clean energy sources and availability of feed stock for gas-based industries.

Essentially, according to Attah,  government needs to do everything including granting additional and far-reaching fiscal incentives and moratorium over and above the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) fiscals focused on gas development, infrastructure and cost reflective pricing as the main pillars on which the nation’s industrialisation will be anchored.

He further said:  “The potential 5bcf/d local market for gas is huge and we must therefore domesticate a significant part of the gas development to drive our national economy, consistent with the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope and Decade of Gas agenda to under pin the economy with gas by 2030.  

“This focus on gas via the recently approved executive orders on non-associated gas (NAG) development and the  structural improvement of our ministerial portfolios to include the ‘Minister of state for Gas’ is definitely in the right direction. 

“However, we may need to be more bullish to adjust our ministerial portfolios to focus on integrating Oil, Gas and Power but to also consider restructuring or consolidation to have a Minister of Energy to enable the full integration of the Oil, Gas and Power Ministries

“With the fierce urgency of now, developing and producing our oil and gas reserves, has got to be the main agenda going forward!!  Suffice it to add that, we will need investors, and the investors would need to satisfy themselves that their investments would realise sufficient profitability in the face of mitigable risks, hence, they would require assurances and clarity on fiscal stability, sanctity of agreements and enabling regulatory policies to enjoy competitive returns in a guaranteed market like ours.”