By Godswill Odiong
A renowned oil and gas analyst, Comrade Bala Zakka has attributed the inability of Nigeria to meet the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota to lack of political will by leaders in the country.
Nigeria’s OPEC quota is pegged at 1.8 million bpd but in the last few years, the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million bpd.
Speaking at the Daily Africa Summit, on Friday, Zakka said Nigeria has what it takes to take advantage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, but lack of political will and business climate hostilities have contributed significantly to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC target.
He said, “There was a time Nigeria conceived the idea of the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline and the plan then was to make sure gas is piped from Nigeria, through North Africa, through the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. If that had been done, Europe will naturally turn towards Africa and Nigeria”.
He also cited business climate hostilities as another major factor that contributed to the lack of significant growth of the sector in the country.
He said, “what we called business climate hostilities means that operating conditions that are not good.
There is insecurity, there is issue with contract cycle. There is issue with vandalism. Even opaque nature of our joint venture relationship with international oil companies, IOCs are also factors”.
Zakka, however called for a change of attitude stressing that “Nigeria is really suffering from this and unless we do away with business climate hostilities, we will not be able to meet up with our OPEC quota. We will not also be able to meet up with our local volume production quotas”.
Illegal refining, vandalism and oil theft
He said, “it is very unfortunate that there is illegal refining in Nigeria. As far as I am concerned, illegal refining is basic criminality and theft. Those who are tempering with these pipelines, first of all, they are thieves, they are vandals. Again, what we think are refineries are carcinogenic plants, they are pollution plants and they are poisonous.
For you to establish a refinery whether modular or major, you need to pass through three stages; licence to establish, license to construct and license to operate. Without these licenses, you have not started.
People break pipelines and steal products that belong to other people whether local or international investors and after stealing they throw the remaining ones to the environment and biodegrade the environment. The ones that get to the ground destroy fresh water, the ones that get to the stream destroy the stream and cause pollution to aquatic plants, the ones that get to the atmosphere come back as acid rain and destroy humans. Illegal refineries are pollution and carcinogenic plants.
Vandalism and crude oil theft demean a nation. It is not good in the face of investors locally and internationally.
Host Communities, Investors and Government
He said, “the host communities should see those assets and investments as theirs. If they are not happy with the way they are being treated, they should use the necessary channels. They can go through their representatives at various levels or use the media o drive their demands.
For investors, the business environment is very harsh. However, they should continue to comply with civic responsibilities by paying taxes and levies. However, when they feel that their investment is being tempered with , they should approach the necessary authorities.
For government, it is very clear that things are not going right. For our refineries not to be working, there is a question mark on our political and economic leaders.
Make environment conducive and the operating conditions good for host communities and investors. At the end, it is Nigeria that will benefit”. He said.
He maintained that Nigeria needs good political leaders that will be very good economic managers because the image of Nigeria in the international oil and gas industry is looking bleak, damaged and terrible.
