The Minister of State for petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva says the federal government is strategising to ensure efficient oil and gas sector in the post COVID-19 era.
Sylva made this known while presenting a keynote address at the 13th Annual International Conference of the National Association of Energy Economics (NAEE) in Abuja on Thursday.
The theme of the Conference is “Energy and Petroleum in post COVID-19 world’’
“Our strategy to strengthen the Nigerian oil and gas industry in a post-COVID-19 world is to transform our national oil company into a diversified energy holding company.
“This will enable us respond swiftly to the twin challenges of a future crash in crude oil prices and decarbonization, by moving rapidly to becoming an energy holding company with more diverse interests.
“Consequently, we have strategically focused on our vast natural gas resources, as a critical transition fuel to help battle global warming and function as bridge between the dominant fossil fuel of today and the renewable energy of tomorrow.
“Natural gas has the intrinsic ability to meet the increasing global requirement for cleaner primary energy use, while at the same time, enabling much needed domestic industrialisation for rapid economic growth in very few endowed countries, such as Nigeria,’’ he said.
He noted that substituting traditional white products with gas would cushion the effect of the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector and stimulate economic growth.
He added that it would further improve Nigeria’s energy mix; drive investments and create enormous job opportunities for Nigeria.
“Recently we declare 2021 to 2030, the decades of gas in Nigeria, after making laudable achievements and successes in 2020.

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