NURPC Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, stated this when he played host to the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Felix Ogbe, in his office on Tuesday.
Komolafe had disclosed that the Nigerian upstream sector is “facing severe pressures because of the low crude oil production and lack of investment in recent years.”
According to him, the energy map of the world had changed considerably with the emergence of several new oil-producing countries.
This situation, he said, had induced a high level of competitiveness for investment capital, stressing that strategic actions must be taken to make the Nigerian environment investor-friendly.
“We must vacate entry barriers for investment. This is common logic when there is high competition. We need to work together to lower barriers and do everything possible to motivate investment,” a statement from the NCDMB on Wednesday quoted Komolafe as saying.
He assured that the NUPRC would partner closely with the NCDMB to achieve some of the programmes it had planned for 2024.
In his words, the NCDMB reiterated the need for teamwork and partnership among various agencies under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, to sustain the growth of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
Ogbe hinted that collaboration would create an enabling environment that would attract investments and new projects into the sector, helping to create employment opportunities for youths and address insecurity in the polity.
While noting that local content development would be stunted if projects and investments in the oil and gas sector did not flourish, he suggested that the two agencies should organise workshops to examine and resolve concerns identified by investors as obstacles to investments and new projects.
He hinted that investment decisions by international oil and gas companies are often affected by their assessment of their Return on Investments.
Ogbe also visited the National Insurance Commission, Sunday Thomas, whom he promised that the board would work closely with NAICOM to review and operationalise the insurance services regulations jointly issued by both agencies in June 2022, to get Nigerian oil and gas companies to patronise local insurance firms.
