The Federal Government says its inability to meet the oil production quota allocated to Nigeria by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is due to the lack of investments in the oil and gas sector of the economy.
It said the lack of investments was due to the recent exits of International Oil Companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil from Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Nigeria’s OPEC quota is pegged at about 1.8 million barrels per day but in the last few years, the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels per day.
Speaking at the ongoing CERAWeek in Houston, Texas, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said the speed with which IOCs were withdrawing investments in hydrocarbon exploitation had contributed significantly to Nigeria’s inability to meet its OPEC target.
He was quoted in a statement issued in Abuja by his media aide, Haratius Agua, as saying, “The rate at which investments were taken away was too fast.
“Lack of investments in the oil and gas sector contributed to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC quota. We are not able to get the needed investments to develop the sector and that affected us.”
Sylva also cited security challenges as another major factor that contributed to the lack of significant growth of the sector, adding that the drive towards renewable energy by climate enthusiasts had discouraged funding for the industry.
