Mallam Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), has knocked the International Oil Companies (IOCs) for mounting pressure on the state-owned oil and gas company as it relates to clean energy development and climate change.
BizWatch Nigeria understands that in recent years, Europe and America which generate most of the world’s dangerous carbon emissions, have continued to pile pressure on Nigeria and other oil-producing countries, to jettison their resources in pursuit of cleaner fuels.
Addressing their concerns, Kyari expressed confidence that it’s impossible for Nigeria to make all vehicles run on clean energy between now and 2035, as he maintained that crude oil would continue to be relevant.
“We need the cash flow and the cash flow is what we need to make sure tomorrow we become self-reliant. Therefore, we are leveraging the position of the oil industry,” he added.
He noted that before now, everybody was looking for oil , but noted that now Nigeria needs to start looking for gas, with some associated oil instead of the other way round.
According to him, building Nigeria’s gas resources will mean building the country, stating the NNPC was going beyond power point presentations to the reality of actual work.
“We are a huge company. We have a $60 billion asset so we can …so we can run without help , but we need help…no one will stop us…if you want to do so, we will kick you out…we are the largest economy in Africa and many of these countries rely substantially on our prosperity.
“To do this we are building infrastructure…we are engaging and we are having the line of sight to excellent engineering, financing and we will build a line all the way from Brass to Morocco and Europe,” he added.
He explained that the NNPC and government spent humongous sums to reduce oil theft in conjunction with the locals and the security agencies.
“We are almost running solo, some of our partners will say get out…we have talked all the talk. If they walk away we will stay, of course, we are working assiduously,” he noted.
