OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Nigeria’s official oil and gas conference, Nigerian International Petroleum Summit, NIPS for 2021 will now hold from June 6-10.
Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva who made the announcement said the date was shifted due to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have had to re-consider the dates in light of the current global pandemic”, Sylva said in a special video broadcast on somgle television stations and which was also shared on the Petroleum Ministry’s official social media handles.
The theme of the summit, “From crisis to opportunities: New approaches to the future of hydrocarbons” aims at charting the way forward for Africa’s oil and gas industry in the post-Covid-19 pandemic era.
Sylva said that while it has been a challenging year for the oil and gas industry due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis also provided the world with an opportunity to re-define the oil and gas industry for transformative moments.
“Let us all, therefore, come together under the platform of NIPS 2021 in our quest to return to the attractive industry performance that lifted the entire economy over the years,” Sylva added.
James Shindi, Managing Director, Brevity Anderson, event producers of NIPS said that “economies are going through challenging times and one of the sectors that has witnessed significant challenges is the oil sector, globally and in Africa.”
Shindi posited that the evolving economic situation and challenges could provide an opportunity for African oil producing countries to explore how economies can be diversified away from reliance on oil; maximise the local value-added of the oil; increase cross-border trade and investment between African countries and engender creativity through expanding deployment of renewables in the power sector.
