Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has reaffirmed the determination of the Federal Government toward the realisation of the set nine priority projects in the oil and gas sector as mandated by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister made the reaffirmation in his opening remarks at the 3rd quarter governance meeting with top management staff of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and chief executive officers of the ministry’s agencies held on Tuesday in Abuja.
Speaking further, the minister said the meeting, which is intended to be held once every quarter, is aimed at reviewing the various activities geared towards the attainment of the 9 Point Delivery Priorities identified for the oil and gas sector against the backdrop of the centrality of oil and gas to the Nigerian economy.
Sylva noted that the desire to achieve the priority projects informed his decision to cascade the Presidential mandate to the CEOs of the Ministry’s agencies which resulted in the designing of the road map to facilitate the process. He added that the Priority Projects are to be achieved over Short, Medium and Long term periods.
The Minister informed that in a bid to ensure the actualization of the Priority Projects, a monitoring team that shall monitor the implementation of the strategic priorities to deliver on the ministry’s mandate has been constituted. The report of the monitoring team, according to the minister, shall feed into his quarterly briefing at the Federal Executive Council.
In his address, the permanent secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Bitrus Bako Nabasu, stressed that the quarterly governance meeting between the minister of state, petroleum resources, the permanent secretary and CEOs of agencies was conceived by the minister as a forum where his policy direction as clearly enunciated in the delivery priorities will be discussed and the methodologies of achieving them are agreed upon and Performance Management evaluated.
The Priority Projects are: Eradicate smuggling of PMS across the Nigerian boarders; Complete Gas Flare Commercialization Program; Increase crude oil production to 3 million b/d; Reduce the cost of crude oil extraction by at least 5%; Aggressively promote passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill; Aggressively promote passage of Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Amendment; increase domestic refining capacity; Create large number of well paying jobs; and implement strategy towards 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
