The Managing Director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited, Elohor Aiboni, forecasts a three billion cubic feet per day gas supply crisis in Nigeria by 2030.
Speaking in Lagos at the Nigerian Council of the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ annual conference in 2023, Aiboni warned that despite having the largest proven gas reserves in Africa, “Nigeria could see gas demand exceeding gas supply by at least three billion cubic feet per day by 2030.”
Aiboni, who was represented by SNEPCo Finance Manager, Tunde Oduwole, asserted that a projected rise in population, deteriorating infrastructure, a deteriorating security environment, and limited access to energy would all contribute to a gas supply deficit.
She counseled Nigeria and other African countries to keep improving their fiscal conditions, political environments, energy policies, and contractual conditions to attract investors and energy businesses.
In light of the enormous amount of money needed for the exploitation of gas reserves, the SNEPCo MD also urged African nations to take concerted steps to attract foreign direct investments.
To draw investors into its gas sector, she urged the continent to implement fiscal policies, free trade agreements, and a stable social, political, and economic environment.
While Africa’s oil and gas sectors offered opportunities for FDI, Aiboni stated that such capital would “preferentially go to countries with more stable macro-economic policy environment, low or moderate inflation, stable interest rates, stable or predictable exchange rates, easy access to foreign exchange, and minimal capital controls.”
She stated that FDI in Africa decreased from $80 billion in 2021 to roughly $45 billion in 2022, using recently released numbers from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
She also claimed that as developing nations strove to meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, there was a concerning investment gap.
“It is urgent now more than ever that oil and gas producing countries in Africa take concrete steps to improve access to available capital pools, create enabling environments, and attract the right skills and capabilities that could both meet the energy needs of our developing populations and position us strongly in a new energy landscape,” she said.
