The Federal Government has asked the European Union to increase gas and hydrocarbon investments in Nigeria in order to meet the bloc's energy demands.
The demand comes as a result of the escalating conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has put European gas supplies in jeopardy.
Russia presently supplies between 30% to 40% of the EU's gas needs.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said Nigeria was ready to step in as an alternative gas supplier to Europe during a courtesy call by the EU Ambassadors to Nigeria, led by Ambassador Samuela Isopi.
In a statement on Saturday by his Senior Adviser (Media and Communications), Horatius Egua, Sylva urged the EU to encourage its oil and gas companies such as Shell, Eni and Total Energies to scale up investments in the Nigerian gas sector.
He said: “One of the things we warned against earlier was the speed with which EU was taking away investments in fossil fuels.
“We warned that the speed was faster than they were developing renewable energy.
“You can see now that what we were warning against is what is happening now.”
Sylva told the delegation that what stunted growth in the development of gas in Nigeria was fresh investments, and called for a change of attitude on the part of EU if its requests to increase supplies to Europe would be realised.
According to the minister, one of the biggest challenges the sector has is lack of investment.
He said: “In the last 10 years, over $70 billion worth of investments came to Africa, but sadly less than $4 billion came to Nigeria.
