The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria has urged the federal government to sell its controlling shares in state-owned refineries.

Speaking on Thursday in Abuja at the 4th PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit (PEALS 2025), the association’s president, Festus Osifo, made the call, according to NAN.

The event, themed “Building a Resilient Oil and Gas Sector in Nigeria: Advancing HSE, ESG, Investment and Incremental Production,” underscored growing calls for the privatisation of state-owned refinery assets—a move PENGASSAN says is necessary to strengthen the sector.

“Government must divest majority control of the refineries, just as in the NLNG model, where private partners hold 51 percent while government retains 49 percent,” Osifo said.

Osifo noted that while Nigeria’s workforce has the technical expertise to run the refineries, inefficiency, waste, and frequent breakdowns persist due to inadequate tools and sustained political interference.

The president cautioned that Nigeria’s 37 billion barrels of crude reserves risk being underutilised if output remains at about 2 million barrels per day (bpd).

He called on the government to ramp up drilling and exploration activities.

The PENGASSAN president urged that oil revenues be channelled into infrastructure, education, and healthcare to drive economic diversification, pointing to Dubai’s transformation—financed by Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth—as a model Nigeria could emulate.

He praised the recent marginal field bid round as the “most transparent” in the country’s history, contrasting it with previous politically influenced allocations that, he said, stifled growth due to incompetence.

Osifo further condemned alleged anti-labour practices, citing reports that 11 Plc compelled workers to sign agreements prohibiting union membership.

In his remarks, Felix Ogbe, executive secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), stressed that human capacity development remains the foundation of growth in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

He noted that the sector’s long-term sustainability relies not only on reserves and infrastructure but also on equipping Nigerians with vital skills in engineering, safety, automation, and digital technologies.

Ogbe highlighted NCDMB’s investments in training, research, and innovation, emphasizing that every major oil and gas project must incorporate skill-transfer components.