Lagos, Jan. 31, 2023 – Some experts have blamed lack of foresight and seriousness for the current challenges in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
The experts expressed their views in the latest edition of Proshare’s “Analysts Note” published on Tuesday.
Proshare is a research and market information service company in Lagos.
The experts said Nigeria’s fiscal woes and consumer squeeze “is a reflection of the lack of deep thought and deliberateness in administrating Nigeria’s Oil and Gas industry”.
They said that without a clear oil and gas policy and a firm grip on the industry by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, industry challenges, including dwindling oil production and pricing differential, among others, would worsen.
“Nigeria’s inability to optimize its oil and gas production and revenue have led to some downgrades on investment rating scales, the latest being Moody’s rating downgrade, following the JP Morgan downgrade of Nigeria from the overweight emerging market sovereign recommendation in 2022.
“Unlike Qatar which recorded a budget surplus in 2022 by taking advantage of its huge gas reserve and controlling expenditure, Nigeria recorded a large fiscal 2022 debt of N6.37trn as of November 2022.
“Qatar has about 896trn cubic feet of gas reserve while Nigeria has about 206trn cubic feet of gas reserve in addition to over 37bn barrels of crude oil reserve.
“A recent report from the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) shows that between January and November 2022, Nigeria flared an estimated 5.6bn standard cubic metres (scm) of gas valued at US$685m.
“Much more worrisome, the country flared 80bn scm of gas worth N9trn in the last decade,” the experts said. (GBN)
