Peter Uzoho
The Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), an umbrella body of oilfield service companies in the country, has lamented the huge revenue losses being suffered by the country arising from the 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude oil production shortfall daily.
The association also estimated the financial value of that gap to be in the hundreds of trillions of naira and in excess of Nigeria’s annual budget.
It, however, promised to support the efforts of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration to increase Nigeria’s oil and gas production for maximum value to the nation.
The newly-inaugurated Chairman of PETAN and Chief Executive Officer of Geoplex Drillteq Limited, Mr. Wole Ogunsanya, made the assertions in Lagos during an interaction with energy reporters.
He said the vision and intention of PETAN was to support the authorities to ensure that all the values existing in the oil and gas industry are retained in Nigeria.
He stated that if Nigeria could retain at least between 60 to 70 per cent value of the oil and gas value chain in the country, the nation stood a better chance of emerging as a top 20 economy in the world.
Ogunsanya expressed concerns that Nigeria is currently losing a lot due to its inability to produce up to its oil production capacity, saying that has hampered the ability of the government to fulfill some of its obligations.
He said the losses from the underproduction would not have been recorded if there was full in-country retention of values and beneficiation across all the chains of the industry.
Nigeria’s production still stagnates at below 1.3 million barrels per day despite promises by the government to ramp up production to between 1.8 million to two million barrels per day.
Ogunsanya explained: “Essentially, if Nigerian organisations are involved in taking that oil out, taking it to a refinery owned by Nigerians and refining it. If we have petrochemicals refining the gas and we are processing it in power plants, we run pipelines to connect all those power plants, this country will be in the top 20 economies in the world.
“And we believe very strongly that there is no better prescription for Nigeria’s economic solution than that.
“So, what we have is, as we see today, the production is down by at least 500,000 barrels. If you do the mathematics at today’s rate, you are talking of hundreds of trillions of naira, more than what the national budget per year is.”
In order to retain those values in-country at every stage of the oil and gas process, Ogunsanya said a lot of gaps needed to be filled through government policy initiatives and collaboration with industry stakeholders.
Reiterating PETAN’s commitment to support the retention of those values, he acknowledged the presidency’s high interest in increasing production.
He pointed out that the presidency had given the directives and had formulated a lot of gazettes, adding that PETAN aligned with those initiatives.
