The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mall. Mele Kyari has reiterated the company’s resolve to the gradual migration into cleaner energy.
This is even as he noted that “migrating immediately into renewable energy is not feasible in today’s reality due to scarcity of resources.”
The GCEO stated this at Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) summit in Abuja.
Delivering his keynote address at the summit titled “Energy Transition: positioning the Nigerian Energy Industry for the future”, Mele Kyari said, Energy transition is real and that the NNPC Limited is duty bound to provide an alternative source of energy for the country.
He said: “And for NNPC by law, we are required to be guarantor of energy security for this country, this is very broad, tough and very demanding. It means that we must supply energy to this country in all its forms; power, petroleum products and also provide the resources that are required to build new energies as we are already talking about energy transition.
“it is our duty as first line of response to make sure that we provide an alternative cooking fuel. This is what we are doing to see how we will increase Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for vehicles and Liquified Natural Gas (LPG) for cooking and create infrastructure that will deliver gas into homes and also factories so that we can take some of this into less cleaner fuel so that ultimately we can transit gradually into cleaner fuel but in a very just manner”.
He noted that migrating immediately into renewable energy is not feasible in today’s reality due to scarcity of resources.
“In today’s reality, in terms of infrastructure in Africa particularly our country, basic facts that we are all aware of is that 50% of our people don’t have access to electricity, 70% don’t have access to clean fuel so you must address this. You cannot jump from this situation to electric vehicles” he said.
Speaking on fuel production, the GCEO stated that about 66 million liter of petrol is a evacuated from the depot daily and that there is a greater need for inprovement in production due to population increase.
“Today what we know is that evacuation from the depot is 66 million liters per day, anytime you bring down the evacuation level below 60 million liters a day, there will be scarcity in the streets.
“Today we are transferring to oil marketing companies at 118 naira per liter so that they will be able to sell at 165 or 170 naira at the pump. That means the difference between 118 and 165 or 170 is a burden carried by government.” He stated
On crude oil theft the GCEO called on all stakeholders to join hands in the fight against crude oil theft and pipeline vandalization, while acknowledging the supports and efforts of government security agencies and private securities.
He said: “I am very happy with the current level of support we are getting from government security agencies and it’s working and there are involvement of private securities, we don’t mince word about it that the involvement of private security companies in this journey has helped us.
“I am happy to also share with you today that monumental progress has been achieved and I can tell you that in a week a couple of our pipelines will come back on stream.”
In his remarks at the two days summit, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) Engr. Gbenga Komolafe said the topic of this summit is apt while stating that the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) has brought confidence to the oil and gas business.
“We all agree that the passage of the PIA brought landmark reforms, clarity and investors confidence to the oil and gas business in Nigeria considering the fact that it took about two decades before it was signed into law”. He said
