Posted on: 02:17 Tue, 15 Mar 2016



President Muhammadu Buhari has
said that his administration has
plans to extend oil and gas
exploration into new fields in the
Lake Chad Basin in the North East
and in the coastal states, like Lagos,
where oil has been discovered in
commercial quantity.

“Current volatility in the oil sector
allows lessons to be learnt,
synergies to be built and new
approaches to be adopted to enable
Africa expand its economy,
infrastructure, manpower base,
maintain domestic and regional
peace and protect the
environment.”

The president said this on Monday
while declaring open the 6th
African Petroleum Congress and
Exhibition (CAPE VI) being hosted
in Abuja.

President Buhari, who was
represented by Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo, said as part of strategies
to reposition the Nigerian oil and
gas industry, his government had
commenced the process of
implementing carefully conceived
initiatives which would see the
country hitting a production target
of 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd)
of crude oil.

On his part, Minister of state for
petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, called
on African governments to develop
policies that will enable backward
integration.

“It is a new dawn and we are
excited about the development. We
will continue to work
collaboratively because there is a
lot happening in the space but also
a lot of challenges that we have to
overcome.

“The major challenge is funding.

Obviously skillsets are there
already and technology is not an
issue but funding remains key.

Policies are also key because
African governments have to
develop policies that will enable
backward integration into their
own systems.”