TheCable

Mele Kyari, group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says the corporation made more money from gas than the oil industry during COVID-19 pandemic.

Kyari disclosed this on Friday, during an interview with Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), noting that the corporation plans to refocus more on gas — the future of Nigeria’s resource economy.

He said Nigeria’s major focus has been on producing oil which hindered the country from producing much from its gas assets.

Kyari noted that NNPC will not lose sight in oil as it refocus on gas, however, during the COVID-19 pandemic, only the gas sector survived in the oil and gas industry.

“We want to change our focus on becoming a gas country. We want to go into domestic production of gas by injecting more gas into domestic market, power, gas-based industries and other combustion forces; so that ultimately we will see growth in demand for gas in our country,” Kyari said.

“We have learnt our lesson, we will develop our gas assets because we know the future of Nigeria is gas.”

He said by 2021 a petroleum legislation will be set up to focus on developing gas, supply and infrastructure, adding that Nigeria wants to balance its priorities on gas.

On the oil industry, Kyari said: “Our ambition as a country is to grow our reserve to at least 40 billion barrels of proven oil (from 30 billion) and also grow our gas assets”.

He further said NNPC was the first largest institution in Nigeria to develop a business continuity plan during the COVID-19 pandemic to support the corporation, which in turn enabled it to produce optimally into Nigeria oil fleets.