By Emeka Ugwuanyi
Investors have urged the Federal Government to review some of the policies in oil and gas industry to enhance the ease of doing business.
According to the investors, bureaucratic processes undergone to secure and implement a project in the industry are unhealthy for business transactions, adding that the things investors pay for have increased significantly.
The things include meeting the conditions NipeX have put in place to getting licences from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and paying for safety and standards.
NipeX is Nigerian Petroleum Exchange, an electronic one-stop transaction centre created to improves on value procurement in the oil and gas industry and institutionalise world-class contracting processes in Nigeria. NipeX is a Division of National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), an arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The investors, who spoke at a panel, during the just-held Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) in Abuja, noted that policies that hamper inflow of investments and fast-tracked implementation of projects need to be reviewed and streamed lined. They said investors pay for many things, yet there are no businesses.
Read Also: Strengthening the ease of doing business in Nigeria
They advised the government to review some policies so that the factors militating against ease of doing business in oil and gas industry would be eliminated.
According to the Group Managing Director, BRADE Group, Ese Avanoma, one of the investors that spoke to The Nation on the sidelines of the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS), “local content needs to be further strengthened and supported, policies in the oil and gas industry that give room to duplication of roles and payments should be reviewed by the government for the purpose of ease of doing business.
He said the government must see how to reduce the red tapes in the industry, which have really increased.
Avanoma, who said his six companies that operate across Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, among others, said drilling of oil and gas wells are core areas of his firm’s operations and they do drilling and completion in these countries.
His companies also deal on heavy duty equipment used for oil pipes and line pipes. The group is looking at introducing a new technology in the industry that would reduce the cost of crude oil production, he said, adding that most recently, his company veered into the production of chemicals.
He said: “We are into drilling and completion of oil and gas well, heavy equipment to service the oil industry, manufacture of chemicals and new technology adaptation in Nigeria. As you must have noticed, the oil and industry has undergone major review in the past few years, which have negative and positive impacts. Cost is one of the major drivers, we use to have a barrel of crude oil costing $100, and today it cannot be anywhere higher than $60 per barrel. We will bring in new technologies and adapt them to the Nigeria environment to see how they can reduce the cost of producing a barrel of oil here.”
To him, the cost of producing oil is so high in the country, therefore, such new technologies will change the way things are done traditionally for better results.
Leave a Reply