OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Seplat Energy Plc has maintained that energy security remains the bedrock of Nigeria as the country must have a robust energy base to meet its present and future energy needs for it to sustainably develop.
Effiong Okon, the company’s Operations Director/Executive Director, stated this at a conference held in Lagos last week.
According to him, economic development is a function of both access to energy and the quality of the access.
The Seplat Director who was one of the lead presenters at a panel session, added that the company is committed to providing the required energy for Nigeria’s sustenance now and in the future given the country’s huge growth potential, according to
Providing insight into the country’s current energy challenges, he said: “Nigeria has less than 11GW generating capacity on grid and much of it remains unused owing to inefficiencies and gas supply constraints; distribution is not well developed across the country and suffers poor maintenance, with frequent blackouts which leads to supplementing on-grid generation with generators.
“There is an estimated 22 million small generators in use in households and MSMEs in Nigeria which are expensive to buy and run and responsible for particulate and Greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.”
According to him, the power deficit has direct and indirect impact in achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); of which, going forward, energy demand is expected to grow, driven by increasing prosperity and standard of living in the emerging world.
By Compound Annual Growth Rate, CAGR calculated for 2020-2030, Nigeria will remain an important country playing in the next decade with 31 billion boe of reserves (ranked 2 in 1P, 2P); and up till 2030, oil will remain the predominant play (approximately 60% of total production); but with faster decline than gas, gas will become more important in the long-term (from ~30% of total production in 2015 to approximately 40% production in 2030).
“It’s critical for oil and gas companies to target the right growth opportunities to remain relevant and create value,” Okon advised.
Seplat, he said, understands that the country is fast transitioning from an oil driven to a gas electricity market, with an emerging renewable sector, and that gas is to serve as the transition fuel in the path to a sustainable future.
He stated: “Seplat aims to expand beyond our E&P core to drive integrated gas solutions in monetizing gas resources in the domestic market. This is critical to driving sustainable industrial growth and address the power (electricity) deficit in the Nigerian market.
“Evolution from fossil fuels (oil) to cleaner (low carbon – gas) and more sustainable forms of energy (renewables) and balancing emissions through offsetting & the purchase of carbon credits will support the climate change ideology.”
Beyond Seplat’s mitigation strategies/actions on decarbonization, he said the company’s growth aspiration is to displace biomass with LPG as cooking fuel whilst targeting to become carbon neutral by achieving net-zero emissions.
“Seplat’s drive for domestic gas utilization is to support Nigeria’s gas to power and industry programmes, with our transformation journey focused on understanding and investing in energy transition. Equally key in our aspirations is to generate employment in our host communities using local workforce, contractors and vendors,” Okon explained.
Seplat currently contributes about 30% of gas to power generation in Nigeria; and the ANOH Project will add 300MMscfd capacity and unlock over 1,200MW of gas constrained power generation capacity.
