Active collaboration between the academia and the oil and gas industry will drive Nigeria’s quest to achieve energy sufficiency and sustainability, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.), Mele Kyari has said.
Speaking as a Guest Lecturer at the 2024 Lecture organised by the Faculty of Science, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Wednesday, Kyari also highlighted the benefits of NNPC Ltd’s Command-and-Control Centre to the battle against crude oil theft, and pipeline vandalism in the country.
In his lecture, titled, “Energy Security, Sustainability and Profitability in Nigeria: Advances, Challenges and Opportunities”, Kyari said the role academic communities, such as the prestigious OAU, play in safeguarding national energy security was more through research and collaboration with the industry.
Identifying the challenges hindering energy security in Nigeria to include rapid population growth, pipeline vandalism, and crude oil theft, Kyari said energy conservation, diversification, and efficiency measures were major avenues to achieve energy security.
To address the projected rapid population growth, Kyari underlined the importance of finding solutions to ensure sustainable energy security for the benefit of current and future generations.
He underscored the intensified competition for vital resources and urbanization drive, which would lead to a doubling of Nigeria’s energy demand by 2050.
On the challenges posed by pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft, the GCEO acknowledged their negative impacts on NNPC Ltd.’s operations, stressing that the establishment of a Command-and-Control Centre has aided the detection and destruction of illegal refinery sites, removal of illegal connections, thereby addressing vandalism across operating corridors since 2021.
The centre, he explained, provides live streaming of surveillance data to security forces, contributing to the detection and destruction of over 5,686 Illegal Refinery (IR) sites and the removal of 4,480 Illegal Connections (ICs) from 2021 to the present.
Acknowledging the severity of vandalism and oil theft, Kyari hinted at a strategic shift, focusing on increased product trucking and storage in underground tankages at NNPC filling stations nationwide.
On NNPC Ltd.’s expanded retail assets, Kyari said after acquiring OVH retail stations and associated downstream infrastructure in 202, the company became the largest single downstream operator in sub-Saharan Africa.
Underscoring NNPC Ltd.’s transformation into a fully commercial limited liability energy company following the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act in 2021, Kyari said the removal of fuel subsidies has allowed the company to play a more active commercial role, ensuring profitability and delivering greater value to Nigeria’s growing population.
