According to a report by the African Energy Chamber (AEC), Nigeria is generating 25% of its 36 billion barrels of oil reserves from deep water projects, a development that has highlighted the country's crude potentials as well as capacity to deepen investments in the oil and gas sector.
Nigeria has the capacity to ramp up production and expand its roles in both the continental and global energy landscapes, according to the AEC's first quarter projection.
Mr N.J Ayuk, the firm's Executive Chairman, predicted that Nigeria will remain one of Africa's top crude oil producers and one of the continent's top three gas providers over the next three years ( 2022 and 2025).
The development, Ayuk said, would provide an opportunity for the West African country to leverage its energy resources for economic growth while addressing global energy demand.
Nigeria, he claimed, was one of Africa's heavyweights in hydrocarbon exploration and production, with over 36 billion barrels of oil and more than 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Nigeria had done a good job of managing itself as both an attractive upstream market and a competitive producer, he said.
"The recent $1.2 billion deal between Nigeria's Seplat Energy and American energy firm ExxonMobil, in which the multinational will continue with its deep-water projects while handing over onshore projects, is an indication of the huge potential the country's offshore projects have in the near future in addressing energy needs as energy consumption increases," he said of the Seplat/Exxon Mobil deals.
"By focusing more on these projects and speeding up exploration and production in major basins, Nigeria has the potential to unleash tremendous economic growth."
It did, however, advocate for further investment in Nigeria's downstream sector, stating that poor infrastructure has slowed oil production and increased the country's dependency on imported fuel.
Nigeria imports up to 1.25 million metric tons of gasoline every month due to a lack of operational refineries, according to him.
Still on Nigeria, Ayuk said the Dangote Refinery project in Lagos, which is set to open in the fourth quarter of 2022, and its cooperation with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), demonstrated the country's desire to become a global oil heavyweight.
