Ike Amos
17 October 2018, Sweetcrude, Abuja — The Federal Government, Wednesday, said it is seeking investors to build and undertake a revamp of dilapidated infrastructure in the petroleum industry.
In a podcast on ‘BigWin 7’, published on his social media pages, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu said this was one of the major reasons for his strategic visits to international oil companies, IOC, with the aim of mobilizing funds for the Nigerian petroleum industry.
He said, “I embarked on strategic visits to the IOCs and the reason was simple: If we do all we want, in terms of the policy drives, in terms of the need to increase production, in terms of the need to increase infrastructure; but a large amount of those funds comes from abroad.
“We visited all of them in their headquarters, held meetings and aligned them to a lot of the initiatives we have. Initiatives in terms of gas expansion; initiative in terms of crude oil production stabilization; in terms of a new funding mechanism to deal with the cash call problems that we had an initiative with the local content drive.”
Kachikwu noted that these travels and one-on-ones helped placed Nigeria on the investment table of most chief executive officers globally, adding that when investments are being considered, Nigeria was one of the countries where the chief executive could say they had spoken to the minister and are willing to provide the much-needed support.
He also noted that the government’s focus was on investors coming in with equity financing, adding that the investors would be expected to develop a business model that makes sense for the country.
The minister stressed that these travels and one-on-one visits helped placed Nigeria on the investment table of most chief executive officers globally, adding that when investments are being considered, Nigeria was one of the countries where the chief executive could vouch for.
He said, “With all these, what can we do in terms of international collaborations? Quite a bit more. We need to get into the financing corridors and be able to find the funding to develop our infrastructure. As we move from a public sector-driven oil sector model, private sector financing is key.
“We need to be able to find investors, who on the basis of equity investments can come in and massively change some of the dilapidated infrastructures that we see here and create a business model that makes sense for this country.
“We will like to see production go up, at a cost that makes a lot of sense. We will like to hold conversations with a lot of people and be able to look at the Production Sharing Contract, PSC, terms and get the very best value for this country.”