Ayobami Adedinni
The Norwegian Ambassador to Nigeria, Jens Peter Kjemprud has said that investment in new technology could help the nation’s oil and gas sector to receive the needed boost in its output.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with PetrolGas Report, the Ambassador said although Nigeria acquires lot of high technology for its offshore subsea sector from Norway, investments need to be made to improve the quality and efficiency of its oil and gas industry.
In his words, ” Nigeria acquires a lot of high technology for the offshore subsea sector from Norway. More importantly, we have common interest and benefit in improving the oil sector.
” For instance, from certain oil fields you can only extract 20 per cent but with the use of new technology, you can increase that to 50 per cent, although you need to make investments in this new kind of technology and that’s where we are more advanced.
“These are investments made for improving the quality and efficiency of the Nigerian oil and gas sector.
“As I said during the Oil conference (NOG 2019), it’s not only the size of the Nigerian oil sector but also about utilizing and making it more efficient,” he said.
Speaking further, he noted that the power sector needs to be developed for Nigerian manufacturers to be competitive and remain in business.
He said,” One important thing I have been focusing on since my assumption in Nigeria is Nigeria to develop its electricity sector because any Nigerian manufacturer cannot run in a competitive way on generators.
” You have huge potential in renewable energy such as hydro, solar and to some extent wind power. What we did was to develop our power sector.
“We produce 36,500 MW for 5 million people. Nigeria produces 3,650 MW which is one tenth, for 200 million people. For me, the most important thing to change in Nigeria is therefore the power sector. If you look around the world, the key is to have stable and cheap power delivered to the industries and to the people.
” It will expand productivity and profits of company and satisfy people’s demands. Now, with the AFCTA, if the Nigerian manufacturing industries should expand, it would need to have that efficient power sector.
” A lot of African countries have cheap power. If Nigeria does not have it, it won’t be competitive. It will take a few years for the agreement to come into effect but before that, Nigeria needs to get the power sector in order, ” he added.
