By Obiabin Onukwugha
The Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), has emphasised the need for greater investment in gas production and distribution infrastructure, describing it as essential to achieving Nigeria’s production target and supporting industrial growth.
PETAN Chairman, Wole Ogunsanya, spoke at a media roundtable organised by the association, under the theme; “The State of Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry: Opportunities and Challenges,” in Lagos on Monday.
The PETAN chairman submitted that Nigeria was yet to maximize its estimated 210 trillion cubic feet of gas potential across power generation, industry and domestic consumption.
“This country needs a minimum of 100,000 megawatts of installed power capacity, and we will not have it unless we produce enough gas, unless we lay the pipelines where those gas turbines are going to be,” he said.
Ogunsanya compared Nigeria’s installed electricity generation capacity of about 12,000 megawatts with the much higher capacities of South Africa and Egypt, arguing that increased gas utilisation was necessary to close the gap.
He also stated that the oil and gas industry remained central to Nigeria’s economic growth and urged operators, regulators and the government to address the investment and production bottlenecks.
The PETAN Chairman, who said the body is in support of the federal government’s drill-or-drop policy which seeks to compel operators to develop their oil assets or risk losing them, highlighted that it is critical to achieving Nigeria’s 3mbpd production target.
“The cheapest oil to produce in the world is already discovered, and we need to drill a few more wells to bring the oil,” he said.
Ogunsanya further argued that developing existing discoveries could deliver additional production more quickly than relying exclusively on new exploration, which he said. requires significant investment and carries geological risks.
“We cannot have those assets sitting there that have potential to produce 10, 20, 50,000 barrels. Every drop of oil adds up to get to that three million barrels,” he said.
The PETAN Chairman also highlighted that enforcing the policy would also benefit indigenous service companies by increasing demand for drilling, equipment deployment and other technical services.
He noted that the transfer of oil and gas assets from international oil companies to indigenous operators had created an urgent need to train the next generation of industry professionals.
He, therefore urged indigenous oil and gas companies to invest in training young Nigerians and strengthening technical capacity to support the country’s ambition of producing three million barrels of crude oil per day.
He said Nigeria faced a widening gap between experienced oil and gas workers and younger professionals entering the industry, stressing that local operators must develop training programmes to sustain production and retain technical expertise.
“We have a huge gap between those that are experienced in the industry versus age. Training is a very important aspect of our industry,” Ogunsanya stated.
