***As Gas Development , Pipeline Security Take Center Stage
To showcase investment opportunities in the Nigerian petroleum industry, the Federal Government on Thursday welcomed a team of Spanish investors led by Jose Manuel Albares, the visiting minister of Spanish foreign affairs.
This follows the federal government’s recent announcement of a mini-bid round for seven oil blocks.
The host of the visiting investors, Chief Timipriye Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, said that Nigeria needs all the necessary investments because the oil and gas industry is the backbone of the country’s economy.
According to him: “The Minister described Spain as a strategic partner with Nigeria in the area of oil and gas trade, stressed that their discussion centered around development of gas, security in the petroleum industry and technology among other issues.
“A partner and customer of NLNG from inception. So you can see that this meeting is actually a meeting between partners. And of course, as you see, the minister came into Nigeria so early in the year, I’m very certain that it’s the first foreign minister that is visiting Nigeria this year.
“We need all the investments when we require as the oil and gas sector is at the core of our economy. And if he comes in with all these array of investors. These are major companies, major investment opportunities for this country, and if the minister comes with all these array of potential investors, then I’m sure that we have the potential of having a lot of investments coming into Nigeria.
“We are focused on the development of gas. We have a lot of gas resources and we need the this this resources to be developed. I told the minister that we have today proven gas reserves up to over 200 trillion cubic feet of gas. We also believe that with focused exploration for gas, we can increase these reserves to up to 600 TCF, that’s a lot and of course, how do we focus on the exploration for additional gas reserves? We need investors and how do we develop this gas also we need investors and Spain is one country that we are looking towards to bring the investments into this sector.
“So it will be a win win for both countries because Europe also requires the gas today we’ve always been shouting that energy transition program should be more mindful of the development of gas as well, because there was the clamor from some sources to move so quickly to renewables and we thought as a country we felt that we were going to move on the transition train through the instrumentality of gas.
“The rest of the world has also come to see that there is a need for us to tarry a while with gas. So it’s a mutual on the part of both countries for us to develop the gas resources that were that we have, we have called for investments from Spain for the investment in the gas sector here. Well, I’ve also spoken to myself and the minister had some discussions on some support that we will require from them in the area of security as well because we have a big problem in the oil and gas sector today. The biggest problem today that we have is security. And of course spain is in position to also support us in this area of security. So of course the area of investment and in the area of technology. We are going to be looking up to Spain. And then of course, also spain looks up to us for further supply of gas to spain. So we’re looking at they also asked questions about the pipeline that we are developing to Morocco” he said.
In his remarks, Spainish Investors led by the visiting minister of Spanish foreign affairs Jose Manuel Albares, expressed hope that the meeting will cristallise towards development for energy for both countries.
“I want to thank the Minister for telling me about evolution and the opportunities in the Nigerian Petroleum industry. And I hope that the meetings that both sides of the private sector ‘both Spainish and Nigeria’ had would be able to deploy its full potential. Nigeria is a strategic partner with Spain, it has been all these years and it has proven that it is our friend and a trustworthy partner in the very complex setting in the energy market around the world. And we have to work to the concrete aspect to develop this bilateral relationship on energy” he said.
