Bilateral relation: FG, Turkey to sign hydrocarbon, mining, energy deals

By Uthman Salami

The federal government will be signing three agreements in the hydrocarbon, mining and energy sectors with Turkey during the official visit of Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoðan’s Nigeria later this month,

This revelation of pact between the two countries was made known by the Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources, Minister Fatih Dönmez.

The minister, after the fifth term of the Turkey-Nigeria Joint Economic Commission Meeting revealed that, “We reviewed the existing commercial and economic relations, and future investment opportunities, and exchanged views on the development of bilateral trade and the improvement of the investment environment.”

Dönmez said that the officials from the two countries discussed cooperation opportunities in the fields of energy and mining as well as industry, technology, agriculture, transportation, health, education, culture, tourism and sports.

He added that, “We identified the areas of work to be carried out for cooperation in the upcoming period, exchanged ideas on what we can do about them, and started preparations.”

Trade volume between Turkey and Nigeria reached $2 billion (TL 17.80 billion) at the end of 2020.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, is among Turkey’s oil and gas suppliers. “Nigeria continues to be the country’s largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa,” Dönmez said.

“The oil companies of the two countries will evaluate their investments and cooperation options for future projects together,” Dönmez added.