Shell not leaving Nigeria, investing more in deep water — MD – Newstrends
Connect with us

Business

Shell not leaving Nigeria, investing more in deep water — MD

Published

1 month ago

on

Shell not leaving Nigeria, investing more in deep water – MD 

Managing Director, Shell Petroleum Development Company and Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria, Mr. Osagie Okunbor, has insisted the company is not leaving Nigeria despite moves to divest its onshore assets.

Okunbor spoke on Tuesday during a high-level panel session at the ongoing Nigeria Economic Summit.

He said the company was concentrating more on the deep water where it has significant technological and financial advantage.

‘Fuelling growth: The Future of Oil and Gas’ was the theme of the session.

According to him,  the company is investing more money in Nigeria with a single project in the deep offshore costing as much as $5 billion.

“Shell is not leaving Nigeria. We are not going anywhere and we will be together for a long time. Our onshore assets shares are being divested to a consortium of four companies which had gone through rigorous selection process,” he stated.

He noted that despite pessimism around the industry, Nigeria’s petroleum sector is not in decline.

He said:l, “Let us not go away from here with the thought that our industry is in decline; it is not.

“I make bold to say that since the enactment of the PIA (Petroleum Industry Act), and the supporting regulations, we are actually in a much better place.

“The Presidential directives that have come out are providing the degree of coherence that we hadn’t seen in a long time in the industry.”

READ ALSO:

Also speaking at the panel session, the Managing Director, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, NLNG, Mr. Philip Mshelbila, said it had become critical that Nigeria must grow its economy and diversify the economy.

According to him, Nigerians have to lead the drive to achieve both the growth and diversification of the economy.

He said, “If I go back on the need for the economy to grow, it is key that the oil and gas industry participate in that growth as well. We have huge potential and it is important that we diversify.

“But the way that I see diversification in Nigeria is that it needs to be addictive rather than a replacement.

“If you go back to the 50s and 60s, what happened then was that we had agriculture based economy but it then got replaced with oil and gas as the primary driver of the economy. What we are asking for is not a reversal of that but that both must grow.”

He explained that the insecurity in the Niger Delta region has limited the growth of the oil and gas industry, noting that it was responsible for driving international oil companies away from onshore operations.

Mshelbila said this has also impacted the operations of Nigeria LNG with the company’s six trains operating at 62 percent capacity, stressing that Nigeria has not addressed insecurity challenges in Niger Delta.

“To date NLNG has never had problem with financing but our capacity utilisation was in the 40s and year to date our capacity utilisation is 62% which means that roughly about 40 capacities has largely been empty. This is a result of a number of different things; one of them is that investment has slowed over the past decade within the upstream. Coupled with this is the insecurity in the environment,” he stated.

On her part, the Group COO, MRS Holdings, Amina Maina assured that the ongoing petrol shortage in the country would ease in the coming days as more supply comes from the Dangote Refinery.

“I think over the next few days those queues will disappear because I’m aware that there are a lot more products that have come into the system. Dangote Refinery has started selling petrol and I’m aware that trucks are going out and a vessel is currently loading. So by the end of this week we should have more petrol from Dangote Refinery,” she added.

Shell not leaving Nigeria, investing more in deep water — MD

Related Topics:
Advertisement

Business

Food price, transport fare hike push Nigeria’s inflation to 33.88% 

Published

3 hours ago

on

November 15, 2024

By

Food price, transport fare hike push Nigeria’s inflation to 33.88% 

Rising cost of living based on the increase in food prices and transport fares among others has reflected in the latest inflation figures in Nigeria, put at 33.88 per cent.

Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 33.88 per cent in October 2024, up from 32.7 per cent in September 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released on Friday.

Newstrends.ng observes that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has raised interest rates five times this year in an effort to rein in inflation.

The NBS in its latest report attributed the rise in inflation to increased transportation costs and higher food prices.

On a year-on-year basis, the rate was 6.55 percentage points higher than the 27.33 per cent recorded in October 2023, highlighting a substantial increase in inflation over the past year.

On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in October 2024 stood at 2.64 per cent, representing a 0.12 per cent increase from the 2.52 per cent recorded in September 2024

This indicates that the rate of increase in the average price level in October 2024 was higher than the rate of increase observed in September 2024.

Continue Reading

Aviation

Disaster averted as bird strike hits Abuja-Lagos Air Peace flight 

Published

24 hours ago

on

November 14, 2024

By

Disaster averted as bird strike hits Abuja-Lagos Air Peace flight 

 

An Abuja-Lagos flight was on Thursday aborted following a bird strike on the airplane belonging to Air Peace, forcing the authorities to ground the aircraft.

The bird strike experienced in the early hours reportedly prompted a ramp return to ensure the safety of passengers onboard.

All the passengers quickly disembarked and were calmed down before they were moved into another plane for the one-hour journey.

A bird strike is a collision between a bird and an aircraft, or other airborne animal, while the aircraft is in flight, taking off, or landing. And it can be a significant threat to aircraft safety.

Air Peace in a statement by its Head of Corporate Communications, Ejike Ndiulo, said the bird strike occurred at 6:30am, and all passengers disembarked normally.

The statement read, “We wish to inform our esteemed passengers that our Abuja- Lagos 06:30 flight experienced a bird strike before take-off, prompting a ramp return as a safety measure. All passengers disembarked normally.

“We have deployed a replacement aircraft for the affected flight in order to minimize disruptions, thus ensuring that passengers continue their journeys promptly.

“We appeal for the understanding of our valued passengers impacted by this development, as well as those on other flights that may experience delays.

“At Air Peace, we are committed to providing safe, comfortable, and reliable air travel for all our passengers.”

Continue Reading

Business

NNPC achieves 1.8mbpd crude oil production

Published

24 hours ago

on

November 14, 2024

By

NNPC achieves 1.8mbpd crude oil production

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) and its partners have revved up crude oil and gas production to 1.8million barrels per day (mbpd) and 7.4standard cubic feet per day (scfd).

The company which announced this at a press briefing said the feat was achieved in compliance with the mandate of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Speaking on the development, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mele Kyari, congratulated the Production War Room Team that anchored the production recovery process.

“The team has done a great job in driving this project of not just production recovery but also escalating production to expected levels that are in the short and long terms acceptable to our shareholders based on the mandates that we
have from the President, the Honourable Minister, and the Board,” Kyari explained.

Giving details of the efforts of the Production War Room, the Chief War Room Coordinator and Senior Business Adviser to the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Lawal Musa, disclosed that the feat was achieved through the collaborative efforts of Joint Venture and Production Sharing Contract partners, the Office of the National Security Adviser, as well as government and private security agencies.

READ ALSO:

He said the interventions that led to the recovery of production cut across every segment of the production chain with security agencies closely monitoring the pipelines.
He stressed that when the Production War Room team was inaugurated on 25th June 2024, production was at 1.430mbpd, but the team swung into action, culminating into sustaining the production recovery to 1.7mbpd in August and hitting the current 1.808mbpd in November.
“We are confident that with this same momentum and with the active collaboration of all stakeholders, especially on the security front, we can see the possibility of getting to 2mbpd by the end of the year,” he stated.
Also speaking on the development, Chairman of the NNPC Ltd Board of Directors, Chief Pius Akinyelure, who also congratulated the team, said he was happy to be part of the production recovery process, adding: “today, I will leave this place with my heart full of joy”.

He charged the Company’s Management to come up with a cashflow projection based on the new production figures to facilitate planning, stressing that he was looking forward to further production increase to 3mbpd.

On his part, the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, expressed satisfaction with the performance of the team and pledged the Federal Government’s support for the company to do more.

 

NNPC achieves 1.8mbpd crude oil production

Continue Reading

Trending