Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea are planning to collaborate on the establishment of a joint logistics base, deployment of indigenous capacities across countries, and lowering the costs of major oil and gas operations.
Those were the fallout of the visit of the Minister of Planning and Economic Diversification of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Gabriel Lima, to the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Simbi Wabote at the board’s liaison office in Abuja.
A release from NCDMB stated that the visit centred on inviting reputable Nigerian oil and gas service companies to establish their operational bases in Equatorial Guinea.
It said the companies would use the country’s ports to launch their activities in neighbouring countries such as Gabon, Cameroon, and Angola.
The Equatorial Guinean minister promised to send a formal request on the partnership to the NCDMB, adding that the support of government institutions would be needed before such business opportunities could be explored successfully.
He complained about the exorbitant cost of key oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Guinea.
Lima further suggested that operators in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea could lower their costs significantly by collaborating in the scheduling of their respective work programmes such as mobilisation and demobilisation of drilling rigs and other assets.
He hinted that the proposed business relationship and pooling of demand profiles were necessary to attract key investments.
The minister and the NCDMB boss re-echoed their positions that fossil fuels would remain the world’s dominant energy source for several decades, and Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea would not hurriedly abandon their natural resources to embrace renewable energy where they lacked competitive advantage.
They said both nations would continue to exploit their oil and gas resources to the fullest and use the proceeds to develop their national economies, including renewable opportunities.
In his comments, Wabote noted that both countries had collaborated closely in the energy sector in recent years.
He confirmed that the board and Nigerian oil and gas service companies were keen to participate in the proposed collaboration.
