OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Mr. George Oguachuba, the Executive Director, Commercial & Strategy, Total Exploration & Production Ltd has called for balance as Nigeria’s oil and gas industry anticipates passage into law the revised Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.
He made the call while delivering a lecture on the ‘E&P Value Chain, Business and Key Stakeholders’ to media practitioners on a one-day virtual media workshop organised by the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE on Tuesday.
According to him, there is a need for media practitioners to dig into the Bill and find out what the federal government is proposing as against what the industry wants.
“We need to have a balanced PIB that works for everyone so as to be proud of what would be left to generations even yet unborn,” he said.
With over 30 years working experience in the oil and gas industry, Mr. Oguachuba hopes that the proposed Bill has the upstream at its centre because according to him, without exploration, all other arms in the industry would cease to exist.
He also called for the right incentives that would encourage exploration activities.
“The federal government should have it at the back of their minds that for exploration to thrive, after we might have remitted all charges to the government account, we also need to have enough to continue to stay in business, balance our budgets, and attend to our expenses,” he said.
He alleged that although stakeholders are yet to see the revised PIB however, with respect to the old version; he assured that the challenges and needs of the host communities would be properly addressed.
In his address, President NAPE, Alex Tarka said the theme of the workshop is significant and very relevant especially in the new normal where the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause the world to adapt to new ways of working, living and relating with one another.
“NAPE’s rationale for hosting the workshop is to enrich the quality of the reportage of events in the oil and gas space by facilitating indepth deliberate conversations to address and close the gaps and opportunities in interviews, messaging, reporting and overall coverage of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria by media professionals,” he said.
Themed ‘Accessing Quality Information & Data Journalism for Oil & Gas Media Professionals’, other sessions such as ‘Data and Digital Journalism: Effective Tools for Data Driven Reporting’, and ‘Oil & Gas Reporting in the World of Fake News’ were taken by Yvette Dimiri of Stears Business, and Toyin Akinosho, FNAPE and Publisher Africa Oil & Gas Report respectively.
In his closing remarks, Mr. Tarka announced that this year’s 4-days November conference would be held virtually.
The 38th annual conference is themed ‘Accelerating Growth in Nigeria’s Hydrocarbon Reserves: Emerging Concepts, Challenges and Opportunities’.