Crude Oil May Be Abandoned Like Coal If Nigeria Don’t Invest In Technology, NCDMB Boss Warns

Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board’s Executive Secretary, Simbi Wabote, has said that Nigeria will soon be at the mercy of developed economies if it does not breed home grown technology to help it utilise crude oil deposits in the future.

Wabote who overhauls the country’s local content activities said this on the basis that the world is moving into cleaner energy which the country is not very prepared for.

According to him, Africa’s largest economy may see its crude deposits dumped like coal sites in Enugu State.

Wabote made his thoughts known during an interview on Nigeria’s local content development on Arise TV.

The NCDMB rolled out a 10-year plan to achieve 70 per cent local content between 2018 to 2027.

Wabote said, “The world has been in transition in terms of energy for a very very long time. But for us as Nigerians, we should not make the mistake of dropping what we have as natural resources overnight and moving onto what the developed world is trying to push us to.

“Example if they say we don’t need your gas, we don’t need your crude oil. We will all fold our hands to say what next? Of course they will begin to wag the tail of the dog continuosly. But our own transition on this day will be a gradual process.”

According to him, Nigeria has not been able to harness it’s 206 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.

“If we go at the burn rate that we have today, in the next 50 years, we will not have 50 per cent of our gas reserves. Is that what you want to walk away from?

“In terms of transition, we must take deliberate decisions and effort to transit into whatever renewables that there are.

“But for us to get there, if we don’t want to suffer what we suffered in the phase of coal where we walked away, today you have all the coal mines in Enugu, we must invest in research and development.

“Because at the end of the day, when you don’t want to transit, the developed world will tell you we are not going to give you all the equipment you need to extract your gas. We are not going to give you all the equipment you need to use your gas, hence you must do what we say.”

According to him, crude may end up the way coal ended in Nigeria if the country fails to invest in home grown tech.

“You can’t grow local content if you don’t manufacture locally. You have to manufacture things locally. In terms of capacity, we have recorded over 1 million man hours in training Nigerians within the oil and gas sector,” he added.

Recall that Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari at the 76th UN General Assembly in New York renewed commitment to the Climate Paris agreement the country signed in 2016.

“We intend to build a climate-resilient economy that effectively aligns with the SDGs and that has great potential to unlock the full opportunities in different sectors of the economy, while protecting the resources for present and future generations,” said Buhari.

The NCDMB boss said the agency has achieved huge success in the aspect of expatriate quota.

He revealed that 90 per cent of Shell Petroleum Nigeria are Nigerians, while only 10 per cent are Nigerians, a claim that reflects a twist to what was obtainable in the company.