Business
What will it take for 2020 to truly be the year of Gas in Nigeria? | By NJ Ayuk
“The Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, H.E. Chief Timipre Sylva has declared 2020 as the year of Gas for the Nation”, the news piece started. What amazing news! And certainly long overdue. As it seems, Nigerian officials have finally taken the cue. As I have said ever so often, more than an oil nation, Nigeria is a gas nation. It just doesn’t act like it.
Undoubtedly, natural gas has the enormous potential to diversify and grow the Nigerian economy, power its industries and homes, produce ever-so-lacking wealth, create jobs, develop associated industries in the petrochemical sector, raise people out of poverty, the list goes on.
Mr. Sylva’s demonstrated intent could perhaps become the most relevant political action anyone has taken in Nigeria in years and could change the country forever; and yet, the work ahead is so vast, we can only hope he has the strength to pull it off.
To be sure, naming 2020 the year of gas for Nigeria has a really nice ring to it, but marketing alone will not cut it. Concerted governmental action is essential if we are to see true growth in the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sector, and first of all, we need to see a conclusion to the long delayed Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme. Sylva stated that this was his main priority, so let’s hope it happens soon.
Once the programme is cleared, oil producers will have a more conclusive alternative to flaring. They will be able to monetize a resource that has so far been wasted, but still that will not suffice.
The flaring issue in Nigeria is tremendous. Every year, 2 million tonnes of LPG are flared, instead of being used as a source of power or feedstock. That means millions of dollars literally going up in smoke. Nigeria’s zero-flaring programme has been on-going for years, and yet, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has just released results that indicate that gas flaring has been consistently increasing over time. More specifically, “a total of 276.04 billion cubic feet (bcf) of natural gas was flared from Nigeria’s oil fields between September 2018 and September 2019”. Further, NNPC stated that “the volume of gas flared within this period was more than what was supplied to power generation companies for electricity production which was 275.31bcf”. This is taking place in a country where 45% of the population does not have access to electricity, besides the extremely detrimental effect that has on businesses ability to compete and the extraordinary environmental damage that represents.
Already, the federal government announced in August that it would not be able to fulfill its Zero Routine Flaring target by 2020 and is yet to provide a new deadline for this goal to be achieved.
The problem remains the same as ever. It is much, much cheaper for producers to flare up and pay the fines than do anything about it. This can not continue to be. Stronger action is needed and it falls on Mr. Sylva’s leadership to see it done.
I don’t mean by this to point the finger at oil producers. Most would probably want to monetize that resource, and would if they could. But we lack legislation, infrastructure, pricing regulations, and actors ready to receive the feedstock. They can’t just pipe the gas somewhere and hope for the best. We need to focus on deepening domestic gas penetration and promote adoption amongst the population, foster the development of gas associated industries like ammonia and urea plants, use this resource for power generation, etc. Demand doesn’t grow out of nowhere.
For this to workout, everybody needs to work together. That means the ministry and the NNPC need to partner with the international oil companies, the indigenous oil companies as well as with the country’s financial institutions to create the solutions that can make this industry flourish. That is a tall job, but an essential one.
Of course, the news that the output of liquefied natural gas (LNG) coming from the Bonny LNG-plant is going to expand by 35% once the 7th LNG train is operational is fantastic. Nigeria will strengthen its position as one of the world’s biggest LNG exporters and that will bring considerable wealth for the country, but its people continue to be in the dark.
And LNG expansion projects are something IOCs are well prepared to do, but there are other important roles in boosting the gas industry that have to be taken by others.
I speak of course of marginal field development, a topic that is of fundamental importance to me and that I have extensively covered in my most recent book Billions at Play: The Future of African Oil and Doing Deals. Both for oil and gas, Nigeria’s marginal field development programme showed incredible promise when it was first launched in 2013. It gave opportunities to local companies to explore smaller discoveries that were uninteresting for the majors, which in turn allowed them to gain experience in leading exploration and production projects on their own. Further, it opened opportunities for domestic use of natural gas for power generation. That programme is now being copied by Angola, and yet, it has stalled in Nigeria.
Further, as I have extensively debated over the years, and most extensively in Billions at Play, we need to dramatically invest in Nigeria’s ability to negotiate and manage contracts. This applies both to the need to respect the sanctity of contracts, a fundamental part of giving international investors the confidence to trust that what they sign for will be respected, but also learning to choose who to sign contracts with. The current debacle with P&ID, an unknown little company that has managed to sue the Nigerian government for breach of contract in the English courts and is seeking USD$9.6 billion in compensation, is an incomprehensible situation that should never have taken place. We need to know who our partners are and who we should be signing contracts with, and then stick by them.
Only by combining the role of the majors, the indigenous companies, the necessary infrastructure development for gas transportation, bridging with the nation’s banks to help finance projects and by giving a clear legal framework to the sector, can we hope to succeed. I do not doubt that this is possible to accomplish in 2020 and the years to come, but coming from the experience of recent years, it does not seem probable, and no one pays the price for that more than everyday Nigerians, that continue to fail to benefit from its country’s resources.
Action is necessary as a matter of urgency.
This week it was disclosed that international oil and gas companies were holding back an estimated USD$58.4 billion in investments in oil and gas projects in Nigeria because of regulatory uncertainty. Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria was USD$1.9 billion in 2018. It’s not like we don’t need the money.
But how can we expect international oil companies to feel comfortable signing off on billions in investment if after 20-plus years of negotiations we still haven’t managed to settle on the Petroleum Industry Bill that will oversee the sector? Who can blame them for waiting to see what happens? They are waiting for us to figure out how we want to regulate the industry, and after 20 years, we still don’t seem to know. That has to change, and soon.
Nigeria has an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves. It is high-time to put them to use. With the right policies we could change the face of the country completely. We could give light to our people, we could power our industries, releasing them from the handicapping dependency on diesel generators that make it all but impossible for them to be competitive, we could relinquish ourselves from our dependency on imported fuel for power and heat, we could create new opportunities for job creation and industrial development, we could take millions of people out of poverty… Further, strong domestic gas and gas-based industries could help boost intra-African trade, create new synergies with our neighbours, boost integration of power generation networks, establish new partnerships, even contribute to peace.
What I am saying, I say as an African, and it applies to many countries across the continent. However, Nigeria is in a prime position to truly enact change and be a beacon to others by showing leadership and resolve. It is the continent’s biggest economy and has the continent’s biggest reserves of hydrocarbons, both oil and gas. NNPC already works with some of the best major IOCs and the country has Africa’s best and most developed indigenous exploration and production capabilities. Let’s give ourselves the opportunity to be better and to live better, by taking advantage of the resources we already possess.
Mr. Sylva is showing leadership and drive. So far, he has proven himself to be the leader that Nigeria needs to develop new LPG and LNG industries that will take the country to the next level of development, not only economically speaking, but socially, environmentally, humanly. So let’s hope he can pull through the great transformations that need to occur for 2020 to truly be Nigeria’s year of gas.
NJ Ayuk is the Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber and author of Amazon best-selling book, Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals.
Unarguably one of the most exceptionally unique amazons ever produced by the African continent, the story of Ibukunoluwa Abiodun Awosika is intriguing in many ways. Despite being raised in a male-dominated society, she shines as a star, defying all barriers to become a global force in banking, entrepreneurship, and mentorship.
The Founder of The Chair Centre Group, former Chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria, co-founder and past chairperson of Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), Awosika, is a trailblazer and an outstanding motivation to the African girl child that no barrier exists where there is a will. With a net worth of over $18.6 million, according to estimates from Forbes Africa as of 2012, the 61-year-old is worth more than her monetary value, especially when measured by the impact she’s made as an author and motivational speaker.
Awosika, a recipient of many awards from reputable global brands, was a guest on Channels Television’s Amazing Africans programme, during which she shared her journey from ordinary to extraordinary.
Enjoy some excerpts from this interesting interview!
In The Beginning…
I’m very proud of my entire experience at Methodist Girls High School. First, it was a school that had a lot of culture and a lot of values and sought in many ways to influence our minds in an all-round way. I was very active in sports. I was in the school’s relay team from my second year in school. I was pretty fast, as my friends used to call me ‘The Rabbit’. I was very involved in school plays and I used to debate to represent my school in debates and all of that. So, you had a full life; all the other things to do were fun and we were mixed backgrounds so it wasn’t just an elitist school. It was girls from every kind of home but we all got into the class because we were smart and so you learned from each other so it was a good community.
I have a quote here: ‘Seeing my drive as a young entrepreneur, my father used to say I have given birth to this one and if anything happened, he was always present to assist me even if it meant selling his house to pay up any debts’. He never discouraged you and I’m sure that had a great influence on what you felt you were capable of doing when you don’t have to go against your parents you have their full support.
I am a daddy’s girl, no doubts and no apologies. In many ways I think I had a special relationship with my dad, my siblings always say that he was a hardworking man, he believed in the value of working hard but he was also a very simple man in many ways. My father was in many ways the epitome of contentment. A man who worked hard, and pursued his goals but was happy with his estate in life and was comfortable sitting with the President and can sit the next day with the mechanic and have a gist and talk about it.
When we were young if my father’s driver was driving us to school or somewhere, you didn’t have the right to say, ‘My driver’, because you would get told: ‘You don’t have a driver. My driver doesn’t belong to you’. My dad will tell you: ‘He is my driver and you just have the privilege of being driven’.
I didn’t understand when people asked me later in my 20s: ‘Oh you did something, weren’t you afraid it wasn’t a thing that a girl could do? I didn’t understand it because I grew up in a home where we were mainly girls. My dad had mainly girls. Well, they had three boys in their lifetime and one passed and so I have two brothers and there were five girls. So, we were mainly girls and my dad never told us there was something we couldn’t do. Rather, it was about that we could do anything we wanted to do and we got all the support and encouragement to do that.
My mother was the same in many ways. She had left her Cameroonian home at a very young age, she was about 18 when she left to marry the guy she had met. I think my dad had gone on some Man O’ War thing to Cameroon and they met. She had been betrothed to another king or something; her father was the king of their community. She came to Nigeria and they got married. My dad went to England to further his education and my mom was pregnant with me. She had my brother, she was pregnant with me and was waiting to have me when my dad left for school in England and so she waited, had me, and after I think barely a year, she left my brother and myself with my grandmother and she went to join her husband in England.
You’ve described your father as ‘non-traditional’ in more ways than one. He’s also non-traditional when it comes to maybe even viewing women would you say?
In many ways. I had the liberty of expression, that’s the word I would use and I think that went for myself and all my siblings. My dad was strict in terms of values. He was strict especially because we were mainly girls but as he was strict in terms of making sure he kept us on the straight and narrow path, he was a very supportive, liberated parent in terms of expressing ourselves.
It’s not only your parents who passed on some important life lessons, your grandmother also has played a significant role in your life. Could you let us know how she also lent herself to your trajectory and success?
Well, I think my grandmother had the most influence in nurturing my early years because my grandmother was responsible for me until my parents came back from England by the end of ‘68, early ’69, when I was about 6 or 7 years old or thereabouts. So, the early years of my life were my grandmother’s to nurture. They used to call her by my name ‘cos she had only boys and I was the girl she raised. She had a little shop in our family compound area in Ibadan. My family is from the capital of Oyo State in Ibadan and my grandmother used to sell salt. She had this little shop where she used to sell salt and little things. I think maybe my first exposure to business was sitting in my grandmother’s little store and joyfully handing over products to customers.
I had things figured out so when you follow the trail, you will see just how much the hand of God played in my life you know. When I was in secondary school, I thought I wanted to become a doctor and then I found out that Medical School involved working with real dead bodies and I quickly changed my mind. It was that simple for me, I couldn’t imagine myself playing around with dead bodies so I gave up on being a doctor. Then I thought I wanted to be an architect. Anyway, I ended up in the university to study Chemistry but by the end of my first year in Chemistry, I realised I didn’t love it. I could pass Sciences but it wasn’t a love for me and I wasn’t enjoying it. So, I then thought okay I’d like to be a lawyer because everybody thought I’d make a great lawyer. After all, I used to debate so well and I thought they might just be right. I remember going to sit outside the office of the Dean of Law every day for many days until his secretary said to the man: ‘Look you have seen this young lady, she’s been coming here every day’. And then, this elderly professor, he is dead now. He asked me to come in and asked me: ‘What can I do for you young lady?’ And I said: ‘Sir, I’d like to transfer to law next session.’ The man looked at me and had a good laugh and thought: ‘I like your guts. You know if I only take one person next session it will be you but you must pass very well’. I said, ‘Yes sir’. However, that would be my problem because once you pass very well my department will never release me to him and if I didn’t pass well enough, he wouldn’t take me. I had a Catch 99 Situation. Anyway, I resolved the situation myself because by the end of the session, I changed my mind about wanting to be a lawyer. I now decided I would like to be a Chartered Accountant so I could go and work in a bank.
During my youth service, I was a very rich corper because I was very busy; I was presenting a programme on CTV in Kano. They had some commercial programmes that I used to present. I was doing voiceover and commercials. I was running aerobics classes for private clients because I was an athlete even up to my university level. So I was doing everything to open up myself and I was making money doing that.
From Auditing To Furniture-Making
When I decided I didn’t want to do the audit anymore, I came back home and when I came back I didn’t want to sit down. I had been making my own money and now I didn’t want to go back to my parents to start asking for allowances or anything so I wanted any job I could find first. So, the first job I could get was in a Furniture Company, one week after I came back from Youth Service. Now, I just wanted something to kill time I still had my eyes on going to work in the bank and I only lasted three and a half months in that company. First, I realised whilst there why I had thought about studying Architecture ‘cos all the creative part of me came alive and I realized I was in my element in terms of what I was doing there but I didn’t like the value system of the company and the way they did their business.
I realised working there that when they hired the carpenters, they came with their tools, and that the expensive machinery, there were smaller versions of them, and you could rent the use of those machines without even buying them and there are places where you go and do pay-as-you-go for them to process things for you. There were different factors of production available in this space and all I had to do was think of how to bring them together with three carpenters, two sprayers and two upholsters that was the team.
Building A Transgenerational Business
When I was 31 years old and going on 32, I had my second child. I decided then that I would like to build the business to the highest possible level but I wanted to have a life and in wanting to have a life, I made up my mind that the business must be able to survive without me and I wanted to do it in my lifetime and not when I’m dead so I decided that by 50 I was going to be out of running my business every day. By 48, I had a firm come in and consolidate all my businesses as they were into the Group and then picked people to manage the business in different levels. I have the title of CEO (but) right now I just tell them to refer to me as the founder because I don’t run the business. I have a COO who has the CEO responsibilities, running the entire business and she’ll get his title soon enough. For the past so many years now, I have kept my eye on the business. I’m responsible, I’m focused on helping them in terms of trying to identify the right strategy and if we want to get into new businesses but I’ve allowed the Group to try and find its way without me and I’ve always shunned any temptation to go back.
Why?
Because if you really want a business to outlive you it has to be able to live without you.
Bitcoin surpassed the $50,000 mark on Tuesday, marking its highest value in over two years.
Investor optimism surged as anticipation grew regarding broader trading approval in the US, with hopes riding high on potential green lights for cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Despite an initial dip following Washington’s approval signal last month, Bitcoin has rebounded impressively, boasting a 25 percent rally since January 22.
As of the latest data from Bloomberg, the cryptocurrency peaked at $50,328, underscoring the resilience and upward momentum in the crypto market, leaving observers optimistic about its future trajectory.
“Enthusiast buyers bring in more enthusiast buyers pushing prices further up,” Fadi Aboualfa, of Copper Technologies, said.
“The cryptocurrency has momentum on the back of several green weeks and has a large chance of going up further when markets see weekly movements upwards of 10 percent (as we saw last week).”
By 0330 GMT Tuesday, bitcoin had dropped slightly, to $49,950.
While Bitcoin has made an impressive recovery, currently standing above $50,000, it still lags significantly behind its peak value of nearly $69,000 in 2020. This rally signals a bounce-back for the cryptocurrency, which faced turbulent times marked by high-profile scandals and collapses within the crypto industry.
Last year, FTX, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, suffered a dramatic downfall, with its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, now confronting potential consequences. Prosecutors have characterised the situation as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” and Bankman-Fried faces the looming threat of up to 110 years in prison.
In November, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao resigned as CEO of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, following both his and the company’s admission of guilt in extensive money laundering violations.
Bitcoin’s upward trajectory is further fueled by optimism surrounding potential interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve this year, as inflation appears to be easing. The cryptocurrency’s value is also influenced by an anticipated supply crunch next year, attributed to the recurring event known as “halving.”
Bitcoin, earned through intricate problem-solving by powerful computers in a process called “mining,” experiences a reduction in reward every four years. With the next “halving” scheduled for April, the limited supply dynamic continues to be a driving force behind Bitcoin’s value surge.
Microsoft joined Apple on Wednesday as a three trillion dollar company, as its big bet on artificial intelligence continued to impress Wall Street.
Now second to Apple as the world’s biggest company by market capitalization, Microsoft’s shares were up 1.31 percent at $404.
Apple remains narrowly in first place at $3.02 trillion after reaching the $3 trillion market capitalization mark for the first time in January 2022.
But it has fallen below the milestone, even briefly losing the pole position as biggest company on the markets when Microsoft briefly overtook the iPhone maker earlier this month.
Microsoft more than any other tech giant is riding the wave of excitement over AI.
The Redmond, Washington-based group has a major partnership with OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, that is reportedly worth $13 billion.
Since the arrival of ChatGPT, Microsoft has launched several products enabling companies and individuals to use the capabilities of generative AI, notably via its Bing search engine and Copilot virtual assistant.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in early November 2022, Microsoft shares have gained some 67 percent, with Apple’s up by about 40 percent.
Microsoft publishes its results on January 30.
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