Dennis Udo – Udoma, Uyo
The Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Mr. Mala Kyari has said, Nigeria has concluded plans to fix the Trans-Morocco Pipelines from Nigeria across 11 countries to Morocco, for transmission to the rest of the world.
Kyari, disclosed this on Tuesday during the 11th Nigerian Content Forum held at the Ibom Icon Hotel and Golf Resort, Uyo, Akwa Ibom state capital.
He expressed the hope that, the investment would engender prosperity in Nigeria and other partnering countries.
The GMD, who underscored the importance of gas as major driver of world energy needs, lamented that despite sitting on billions of gas resources, the country lacks the capacity to develop it to optimum utilization to feed the Liquified Natural Gas ( LNG) and other gas plants in the country.
Kyari stressed the importance of energy transition on effective and seamless transformation for efficient utilization, noting that, NNPC, with its partners were working on what he called in-country infrastructure to address energy deficiency.
According to him, “Gas resources provide the opportunity to power the global economy in a sustainable manner because gas is the enabler of energy transition.
“That is why we are focusing with our partners to make sure we create the necessary infrastructure to bring gas on the surface, process it and convert to the value it can give.
“Therefore, in deepening gas utilization, we decided to focus on in-country utilization, and that’s critical to us”.
The Executive Secretary of Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Boards (NCDMB), Engr, Simbi Wabote in his speech said, the launching of 10-year Strategy Roadmap in November 2017 is aimed at increasing the Nigerian Content in the oil and gas industry to 70% by the year 2027.
“We are now midway into the 10-year Strategic Roadmap and we are back here to provide feedback on the journey so far in our quest to deepen Nigerian Content in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
“Since 2018, our objective has always been to give status report of the various initiatives to industry stakeholders using the annual PNC Forum as a key platform.
“We are proud of the achievements realized in the last 5 years despite the general and specific challenges faced across the oil and gas industry locally and globally.
“It is gratifying that the push for Nigerian Content as envisaged in our 10-year Strategic Roadmap has continued to yield result in the last 5 years.”
Also, Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom represented by his Deputy, Moses Ekpo declared the forum open, stressing the need for effective development of the gas sector.
Udom pointed out that “since the global shift from fossil fuel to renewable energies triggered the launch of the ‘decade of the gas’ by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2021, the industry players had to continually engage in discussions to ensure the country is ready for this transition.