The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Mallam Mele Kyari, has said that the conversation surrounding electric vehicles is “questionable”.
He said this in Abuja at the opening of the 2021 Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference, noting that oil, as a resource, would still be relevant to the Nigerian economy beyond 2050.
This comes as experts project that Nigeria’s oil production would fall by 2050.
Kyari said that “Energy transition is not about movement from fossil fuel to renewable, its creating the right balance and there is this common mistake that in 2050, fossil fuel will go away and we will be dealing with renewables. That is not true, it is very far from the truth.
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“For us as a developing country, energy resource-dependent county, we know for sure that beyond 2050 that oil will be relevant for us.
“Today we are in deficit of infrastructure, power and many other things but so much good works are going on but the fact remains that there is deficit here.
“All the engagements around electric vehicle even in terms of carbon zero objective probably is very questionable if even is the solution to carbon zero-emission so many things are happening.
“Post realities will come up in the next five years and we will have to deal with it but for us we know for sure that things have changed; financial institutions have changed their priorities, some of them have stopped lending to energy borrowings etc.
“Yes it may be for the moment, they may come back to the realities probably in another five years but the reality today is you can’t find easy financing for fossil fuel related businesses.
“For every forecast that we have including from updates from very many other institutions that are not in this business, everybody says even if by 2050 we still have oil demand of about 100 million barrels so what you will see is growth.
“We are still at about 95, 96 today but if we’re still at 100 by year 2050, it means that the growth is very small but there will still be 100 million barrels production on the ground so the position we are taking as the national oil industry and also as an industry, in this country is to produce the quick oil.
“Quick oil means that we have to monitor every resources that is available today, so we will create the resources that will create a future for our country and for our businesses and the oil will provide that fulcrum for us to create the wealth but one thing we are also sure, is that gas is everything”.
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