The he African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO) has warned that it would be a serious mistake for African countries to abandon their hydrocarbon resources because of the energy transition, adding that Africa must seek to make better use of its resources for economic development.
APPO Secretary General Dr Farouq Ibrahim gave the warning yesterday in his opening address to the 3rd biennial 2023 International Conference on Hydrocarbon Science and Technology (ICHST) on the theme "The Future of the Oil and Gas Industry: Opportunities, Challenges and Developments."
Ibrahim said: "As the world embarks on a rapid energy transition, Africa has a duty to its people to use its abundant oil and gas resources to provide them with energy, which is the most powerful catalyst for socio-economic development. In other words, Africa must create a future for the oil and gas industry.
"We have been led to believe that we are too poor to buy energy. So more than 70 per cent of the oil we produce every day is exported to those who are rich enough to buy it. More than 40 per cent of the gas we produce is also exported outside Africa. Yet our continent has the largest proportion of its population living in energy poverty, with over 600 million people living without access to electricity and over 900 million without access to any form of modern energy for cooking or other domestic use.
"What we have not realised is that until we are able to give energy to the hundreds of millions of people who live without energy, our quest to reduce poverty will remain a mirage. Energy is the main catalyst for economic transformation. Give people the means to access energy, not only to light their homes, but also to create cottage industries, and you will be shocked by the multiplier effect.
He said that Africa had allowed the developed world to regard it as a poor country. That's why he doesn't really address the fundamentals of the energy transition issue.
He said: "Whatever aid is given to us, it won't help us with what we need to be able to develop. What we have to do is say that the current problem is the result of 150 years of emissions caused largely by today's industrialised countries. In those 150 years, they have released 2,500 megatonnes of emissions into the atmosphere. For this reason, it is said that we are facing a serious problem, because the world is saturated with emissions.
"Today, there is a technology capable of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and burying it somewhere, which will reduce the intensity of emissions outside. What's not to say to the West: take your money and develop this technology, extract only 500 megatonnes, which will allow Africa to use oil and gas for the next 25 to 50 years to develop as an industrialised society, and it still won't be able to deliver 500 megatonnes. At most half of what they took out.
"The problem is that if you say that and they succeed, you are asking them to continue to depend on oil and gas, which they are determined not to do. The whole issue of energy transition is the issue of energy security. If Europe and America had the oil and gas reserves we have, we wouldn't be talking about energy transition today."
Also speaking at the conference, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo observed that "recent global events such as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have accentuated the fragile nature of energy demand dynamics. As far as gas is concerned, Nigeria was not sufficiently prepared and did not seize the opportunities created by the increasing demand for gas to Europe and other parts of the world.
"On our domestic front, we need to stimulate the domestic gas market. Nigeria is known to be a country rich in gas rather than oil, with proven reserves of over 200 trillion cubic feet of gas. Local problems include inadequate infrastructure, an unfair regulatory environment for gas, pipeline sabotage and a failure to maximise the value of abundant gas reserves.
For his part, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, tasked industrial operators, experts and technologists with proposing solutions to the challenges facing the Nigerian environment, in particular oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
Earlier, the Director/CEO of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Dr Henry Adimula, explained that the democratisation of energy is a key concept. This involves the democratisation of energy resources and technology, ensuring that clean and sustainable energy sources are accessible to all, regardless of location or economic status.