Ministry attributes oil, gas success to“ 7 big wins’’ polices

Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan,  Permanent Secretary of the ministry,  disclosed this during her Keynote address at the 18th Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in Abuja themed:  “ Promoting Investment and Collaboration in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry.

Yemi-Esan represented by Mr Kamoru Busari, Director Oil Services,  said that nothing, in the last four years happened by accident in the sector, adding that they were a direct result of proper planning via the 7 big wins policies and thorough painstaking implementation.

She said  the successes recorded in the oil and gas sector were to make a huge success out of it and form a desirable future for the sector.

She added that it was  hoped that  incoming administration would sustain  efforts of the last one to promote investments into the sector.

“ The theme of this year’ s conference and title of my speech ptly describes Nigeria’ s current situation of transiting to the next level on Nigeria’s attractiveness to international Investors and collaborating amongst industry stakeholders to spur economic development and growth for development of our nation.

“  Nigerian oil and gas business environment presents a unique opportunity to gain at-scale
access to a substantial and growing energy resource base across the full value chain within Africa’ s largest economy.

“ In 2016, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) was inaugurated to address bottlenecks affecting  ease of doing business in Nigeria, following Nigeria’s ranking by
World Bank at 169th out of 190 economies on the ease of doing business.

“The fall in our ranking on  ease of doing business also affected Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI),’’ she said.

Yemi-Esan said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also reported that Nigeria’s FDI,  averaged about 1.4 billion dollars from 2007 to 2015, increasing by 1.2 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2015 and making Nigeria one of the top three destinations for FDI in Africa.

She said, however, in the first quarter of 2018, FDI  stood at 246.62 million dollars , falling by 34.83 per cent from the figure reported in the previous quarter, and growing by 16.67 per cent on a year-on- year basis.

According to her, with the daily average oil production of 2.0 million barrels per day (mbpd) as recorded in the first quarter of 2018, Nigeria’s GDP grew by 1.95 per cent (year-on-year) in real terms in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the growth of -0.91% in the first quarter of 2017.

“Foreign direct investment inflow into the Nigerian petroleum industry between January and September 2018, declined sharply by 61.6 per cent to 118.2 million dollars, compared to $307.54 million recorded in the same period in 2017.

“This was in comparison to the fact that the investment inflow into the petroleum industry accounted for 4.5 per cent of total capital importation in the country in the first nine months of 2017,’’ she said

She said:  “The value of capital imported into the petroleum industry in the second quarter of 2018 declined by 86.9 per cent from N$190.39 million in the second quarter of 2017 to 24.85 million dollars in 2018.

“While capital imported into the industry in the third quarter of 2018, which stood at $7.73 million was 51.9 per cent lower than $16.07 million recorded in third quarter 2017 owing to key policies put in place that help foster collaboration and investment attractiveness.

“The first quarter of 2018 recorded  highest foreign capital inflow in the sector in the period under review, as over $80m worth of investments came into the sector.

“More recently, foreign investment inflow into the Nigeria petroleum industry appreciated by
98.06 per cent to $15.31 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, compared to $7.73 million recorded
in the third quarter of 2018, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS).

“This shows that with adequate structures within the Nigerian oil and gas Industry,  stakeholders
while promoting collaboration can move forward to build on the momentum currently inundating the industry thereby stimulating and increasing Nigeria’s attractiveness to international Investors which will spur economic development and growth for the development of our nation,” she added