The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) has announced plans to complete the OB3 gas pipeline by the end of the second quarter of 2024, which will transport gas from the south to the north of Nigeria, in a bid to boost the country’s economy.
In addition to the OB3 pipeline, Nigeria’s state-owned refinery, the Port-Harcourt Refinery, is also expected to commence operations during the same period.
The Executive Vice President (Upstream) of NNPCL, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, made this announcement during the PETAN panel session at the 2024 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, USA.
Eyesan said, “The OB3 is still ongoing, and we hope that by the end of the second quarter, we will be finalizing the river crossing and unlocking gas coming from the south in the south, all the way to the north, and opening the entire economy to enable energy transition for Nigeria.
“The start-up of the Dangote Refinery is a major win, and today we get products even though the PMS is yet to commence, but we also see the NNPC refinery, which achieved the mechanical completion in December will also be coming on the stream in the second quarter of this year. So these are major wins I believe.”
She said the country needed to aggressively produce fossil-fuel resources to enable the industry players to fund the renewables.
“One year down the line, if we were to be honest with ourselves, we’ve made good progress, but is it where we have put to be? And the way I look at it is to x-ray what the issues are, and what the challenges are, to enable you to make better progress going forward.
“So doing a quick x-ray from where we were last year and where we are today, we had issues with the fiscal. And you will agree with me that we have a very, very responsive government today,” she added.
On the issue of delay in contracting, she said that the president “did not waste time to swing into issuing out a presidential order to reduce the contracting cycle time practically to six months, and also to increase the threshold of the Joint Ventures and Production Sharing Contracts operation.”
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