Take ownership of Nigeria's oil & gas sector, FG urges indigenous players

Port Harcourt -- The Federal Government has urged indigenous players to take ownership of the nation's oil and gas sector, stressing that Nigerians must take the drive in the sector.

The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, gave the charge at the opening ceremony of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity, NOGOF, 2023 organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

Aregbesola, represented by the Comptroller of Corrections, Rivers State Command, Felix Lawrence, lamented that the oil and gas industry was still being dominated by foreign firms despite all the deliberate efforts of the government.

The minister charged stakeholders in the sector to make efforts in funding research in oil and gas in order to come up with unique solutions for specific needs of the industry instead of wallowing on dependency mentality.

According to him, despite the move for decarbonisation, crude oil was going to be relevant even in the next 50 years, hence Nigeria must harness it for its industrialisation.

The minister said: "Despite the efforts of the government, the sector is still being dominated by foreign firms in exploration, extraction and in refining. With Nigeria being a peripheral player in service and marketing, the bulk of petroleum products and lubricants we consume in Nigeria are imported.

"The time has come for Nigerians in the oil and gas industry to begin to take ownership and dominate every aspect of the energy sector. Our indigenous companies should begin to invest in oil processing and research. The research aspect should be well funded, not by the government alone but by other stakeholders as well, to create specific technology according to our specific needs in the oil industry.

"We should get off the dependency syndrome, yes we welcome foreign players, we want more investors, but we should take the driver's seat. We should not only take our destiny in our hands, we should dominate the oil and gas sector, we should be able to supply refined petroleum products to our immediate neighbour and other African countries.

News wire -- European Union countries will agree sooner rather than later to ban import of liquefied natural gas, LNG, from Russia, Spain Energy Minister Teresa Ribera told Reuters.

“This will be coming sooner than later,” she said in an interview when asked if the EU will muster the political will for such a move.

With imports of Russian crude and oil products banned and the flow of Russian gas via pipelines sharply reduced, imports of Russian LNG are in the spotlight as the EU tries to deprive Russia of energy export revenue.

In March, EU countries agreed to seek a legal option to stop Russian companies from sending LNG to the bloc.

“If we want to be consistent, we need to say we are not going to accept Russian LNG anymore,” Ribera said.

“We could all be much more comfortable with that scenario,” she added. “As time goes by, things would be increasingly easier to adopt this decision, banning the imports of LNG from Russia.”

All the companies contacted pledged not to sign new contracts, Ribera said.

The appeal to LNG importers is part of increasing efforts from the Spanish government to crack down on the import of Russian energy products.

Spain has already stepped up checks on import papers and has investigated claims that Russian diesel is entering Europe via third countries. However, so far no evidence has emerged that this is happening, Ribera said. The government is in talks with port and customs authorities, she said, acknowledging that it is difficult to track the origin of energy products.