Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, says investors would leave other countries to do business in Nigeria irrespective of seeming unstable business climate, because the country “has the best returns on any investments in the World. The terrain is good’’.
“Our resource base is huge. We have huge gas reserves, huge downstream opportunities”, Kachikwu said this at a World Press Conference on the sidelines of ongoing annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, United States.
“I don’t know of any country that has that much resource, that income generation. I think we can favourably compete with Saudi Arabia”.
He noted that “a lot of latitude is given to investors to develop what works for them. Most of them know how to be resilient because they know the returns”.
The Minister recalled that when he took over at the ministry there were security issues and downstream policies were not robust as well as lack of investments in the upstream and Nigeria’s relationship with OPEC was strained.
“When we came in, we worked at recreating 18-20 business units within the NNPC.
“We publish monthly reports, contracts/bids are open, cash call arrears are being dealt with as we have paid the first tranche of 400 million dollars to the International Oil Companies.
“On security, the use of persuasion won over the use of force and at the end of the day, we have been able to move dialogue very aggressively.
“There are still lots of work to be done but if we can sustain the momentum, we’ll be on the right track.
“On the international scene, shale production in the U.S. and other energy alternatives are challenges but countries that will survive this period are countries with discipline and I think Nigeria can cue in on this,” he said.
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