Nigeria will rake in about $10 billion as Foreign Direct Investment from gas-based industries as a result of government’s determined efforts to position the gas sector for aggressive growth, Andrew Yakubu, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC , has said.
According to him, Nigeria is transiting from an essentially oil based country to an integrated oil and gas one.
He said: “The Jonathan administration has outlined three aspirations for gas, which are, gas to power, gas based industrialisation and high value gas export, which will undoubtedly generate as much revenue and other economic benefits as oil.”
The NNPC boss who was addressing investors during an Offshore West Africa conference (OWA), in Accra, Ghana, said Nigeria has a total gas reserve of 187 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) with potential to grow to as high as 600 TCF, and this positioned the country as seventh among countries with natural gas reserves.
He noted that between now and 2015, over 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas would be deployed in the country to triple the existing power generation of 4.5 GW to 13.5 GW.
According to him, government’s focus on gas development and ensuring its availability for power generation was based on the belief that the spin-off effects of reliable power supply would provide a solid base for industrialisation as well as attract Foreign Direct Investment into the country.
