By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria wants to corner 20 per cent of the $90 billion in financing available for deepwater projects around the world in an ambitious move to boost its oil and gas sector.
This was disclosed by the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Energy, Ms Olu Verheijen, in her keynote address at an Executive Session of the Energy Institute and the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE).
According to the President’s energy adviser, deepwater oil projects have delivered competitive returns as the country has moved from the bottom quartile of 13 indexed countries to the top three.
“Accessing 20 per cent of this will be more than enough to bring five major deepwater projects on-stream, unlocking 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe),” she said.
Ms Verheijen noted that, in deepwater gas, Nigeria has moved from a total absence of a fiscal framework to having one for the first time in history.
According to her, the reforms targeted actual bottlenecks and real projects in the investment pipelines.
“In April this year, FID was reached on the Ubeta Non-Associated Gas project, a half-a-billion dollar project. The Ubeta field was discovered in 1965 and has finally been unlocked to deliver prosperity to multitudes of Nigerian lives and businesses,” she said.
“We are gearing up for our first FID on a greenfield deepwater development since the last one (Egina) in 2013.
“Going into 2025, we expect the investment momentum to quicken, proving beyond any doubt that President Tinubu’s energy reform agenda is truly revolutionary. Our challenges are addressable and fixable,” she explained.
The President’s aide added these new investments will have major implications for the Nigerian economy in terms of foreign exchange inflows which will help with exchange rate management and macroeconomic stability.
She added that local economies will benefit from the increased spending on construction and hiring, and skill-building and technology transfer will take place.
“Importantly, with the industry infrastructure being developed, each new investment will ensure that subsequent projects are possible at lower costs and with the guarantee of greater returns – creating a virtuous cycle of new investments.”
The Special Adviser noted that the session was apt at the time Nigeria needed ever-increasing levels of energy investment to catalyse its economic development.
She added that energy, in its many forms, remains a vital path to higher paying jobs, to industrialisation, to innovation, and to sustained prosperity, for Nigeria and for all of Africa.
Ms Verheijen then called on the stakeholders to be a part of the unfolding energy revolution in the country.