Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has dismissed fears that the recent spate of divestment of onshore oil blocks by International Oil Companies (IOCs) may lead to crisis in the nation’s oil and gas industry.
Engr. Andrew Yakubu, group managing director of the NNPC , said the divestments are not only healthy for the oil and gas industry in Nigeria but would also go a long way in promoting effective indigenous participation in core upstream activities.’
He spoke on the side-lines of the on-going World Energy Congress in Daegu, South Korea, with the theme “Securing Tomorrow’s Energy Today,”
Yakubu, in a statement yesterday by Tumini Green, NNPC acting spokesperson, noted that the major players that are divesting have actually been sitting on those acreages and have allowed them to go fallow for years without significant development.
He said: “These are not withdrawals in the real sense of withdrawals. The fact is that a number of these IOCs are moving into more challenging frontiers in the deep offshore and are leaving the onshore blocks which they consider less challenging.
“So it is only fair for them to release these blocks so that others, especially the indigenous operators can have the blocks and grow in the upstream business. This indeed is a good development and I think we are moving in the right direction.”
He added that the divestment offers immense opportunities for the nation’s indigenous flagship upstream operator, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) to grow its capacity especially as it strives to meet the 250,000 barrels per day target by 2020.
Yakubu also maintained that the advent of the shale gas and oil revolution in America for now would not have serious negative impact on the nation’s crude oil fortunes as earlier projected by some petroleum analysts.
He said, “no doubt the shale gas phenomenon poses a pushback on our oil and gas, but the good news is that as we speak the impact is going to come a very long time from now because a close examination of the various discoveries of shale gas shows a huge misalignment between what was projected and the actualisation of most of the gas projects that would bring shale gas into full maturity.”
He explained, “though the shale gas revolution is real, its availability in the global energy market is being hampered by high cost and other infrastructural challenges thus making conventional crude oil a cheaper energy source.”
He stated that the Corporation is however, moving to activate measures to ensure that the country is not caught napping if and when shale gas achieves the projected global penetration.