NMDPRA Plans Engagement With Spanish Firm For Gas Production

.As Nigeria set to export urea fertilisers

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

The Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr. Saidu Mohammed, said the authority is set to engage a Spanish firm, CACCHD for the production of gas in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. 

This was as the Authority Chief Executive has revealed that the country will begin exporting Urea soon, stressing that Nigeria will soon begin large-scale export of fertilisers.

He said the Authority is working in line with the terms of compliance given by President Bola Tinubu, to keenly look at key players within the upstream and downstream oil and gas sector. 

Mohammed made the disclosure yesterday, during his operational visit at the facilities operated by Stockgap Fuels Limited, Matrix Petrochemical Limited and Central Horizon Gas Company Limited in Port Harcourt.

The NMDPRA boss stated: “We said, we will sum up today with a visit to a gas distribution network and you know the government desire to propagate gas and that is why they even questioned about four years ago, to embark on the Decade of Gas initiative.

“Decade of Gas initiative means, what can we do to the gas that God has given us in Nigeria? We have to increase the reserves of gas; we have to increase the utilisation for domestic and for export purposes. 

“They (gas) are key to the role of industrialisation because one, they will provide a seamless clean energy source for the industries and thereby reducing the cost of production of whatever product that industry or factory is producing. 

“And, of course at the end of the day, the consumer price gets lower and that is the ultimate goal of Nigerian government to make sure that this resource not only transits us to cleaner energies because gas itself is a cleaner energy source, but also makes sure that it is used domestically as much as we can because gas is known on its own to propel industrialisation. You will see industries springing up wherever gas is.

“So, gas itself is a marketer of its own self. We have chosen CACCHD Spain to be here partly because they are in the centre of Port Harcourt, in the centre of the South-south region that we have chosen to be here first. And also, in the centre of industrial estate, which is Amadi Estate, and they are serving about 12 customers within this locality.

“And also to bring out the message clearly that what we have to do as an authority is to ensure that we keep on backing them, keep the cooperation that they need to expand, but also to make sure that the expansion is done in a systematic way, in an orderly way, in such a way that franchises are duly delineated in technical and commercial manner that is to the satisfaction of everybody.”

According to the NMDPRA boss, “transparency is key to us, and we will go and mark the entire nation. We are already in that process.

“We will mark out the entire nation and start allocating those what we call GDLs, gas distribution network companies that will operate in those systems. And thereby keying into the government desire to have gas penetration into the country in all corners of the country. 

“We will depend on where the transmission lines reach, but where the transmission pipelines are not there, then, we now rely on these same kinds of companies for what we call the virtual distribution through the compressed natural gas or CNG.

“So, you can see they may be looking small, but they are very, very key in the aspiration of government to make sure gas penetrates every corner of this nation, particularly the industrial, and bring back to the glory where we were before.

Industrialisation is very, very key to the development of the nation. And as an authority of the mainstream and downstream regulatory of the petroleum industry, we will make sure that we are, of course, back always to be in that path, of course.

“So, what government is doing is to make sure that this penetration is enhanced through whatever means, through provision of the appliances, including the cylinders of gas,” Mohammed added.

Meanwhile, during his visit at the facility of Indorama Eleme Fertiliser and Chemicals Limited, Mohammed said Nigeria is striving to become a major hub for value-added products in the oil and gas industry, describing the midstream sector as an important segment that requires huge investment to reap the dividends.

He stressed that the country has no business importing value-added products like Urea and fertilisers, especially with the investment being made by private concerns in-country to boost oil, gas, and related sectors.

“What we have seen in Indorama is a manifestation of what Nigeria needs to have. We need a lot of this in the midstream and definitely fertilizer plants and any value addition that we have on the hydrocarbon resources is what is needed for this nation to propel.

“These dreams were there but for one reason or the other we have not been successful. But today, we have found the right footsteps in partnership with the private sector. The midstream of the Oil and Gas businesses is really a tremendous segment that request a lot of investments.

“We need to earn 30 to 50 billion dollars a day if we must get what we need, to get Nigeria in the right footing to being the hub of not only for the oil and gas, but whatever secondary recovery that we can have, value additional products, like the fertiliser, Urea and others, we have no business importing any of those things.

“Behold with the expansion of what we have in Indorama and many other places including Dangote fertiliser, am sure in the next 24 months Nigeria will join the league of Urea exporting county. And that is why we said not only being a hub for energy but a hub for secondary deliberately resources to oil and gas,” Mohammed noted.