Your Excellency Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Excellencies our host ministers – Dr Heineken Lopkpobiri and Hon Ekperekpo Ekpo, Honourable Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Excellency Tom Alweendo, Minister of Mines and Energy of the Republic of Namibia,
Excellency Samou Seidu Adambi, Minister of Water, Mines and Energy of Benin Republic,
Other visiting ministers and Heads of Delegation,
Excellency Haitham Al-Ghais, Secretary General of OPEC,
The organizers of this important annual event, Brevity Anderson,
The brain behind this very important event, Professor Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu,
Captains of the oil and gas industry,
Members of the APPO Executive Board here present
All other participants, ladies and gentlemen.
I should like to express on my own behalf and on behalf of the two organizations that I represent, the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization, APPO as Secretary General and the World Energy Council as regional chair for Africa, sincere appreciation to the government and good people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the invitation to the 7th edition of the Nigeria International Energy Summit, which I prefer to still call the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit, NIPS.
Permit me to also congratulate the government, in particular the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, its successive ministers from Professor Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu who started it all through to Timi Sylva and now Dr. Heineken Lokpobiri and Honourable Ekperekpe Ekpo who have ensured continuity in this laudable project. I also commend the NNPC, the NCDMB, NUPRC, NMDPRA, PTDF and other government agencies in the oil and gas sector as well as the private sector players for the continuous support they have been providing to ensure that NIES excels by the year. I commend Brevity Anderson the organizers of NIES for successes NIES has recorded under its management.
As we gather here for the next few days to review the challenges facing the Nigerian, and indeed African energy industry and chart a way forward, permit me to highlight some of the imminent challenges for the for the oil and gas industry on the African continent, challenges brought about by the global paradigm shift away from fossil to renewable energies, euphemistically called the energy transition.
These are the challenges of funding, of technology and of markets.
I should like to note that although these challenges are not completely new, they have been accentuated by the global acceptance of a paradigm shift from fossil to renewable energy forms of energy.
I should also like to emphasize that although environmental concerns have been put forward by climate activists as the reason for the quest for energy transition, the driving ideology of energy transition is energy security. Energy security not for you and me, but for the developed countries that used fossil fuels for over 120 years to industrialize their economies and make the lives of their people better.
In 120 years, they put in the atmosphere over 2,500 gigatons of emissions.
It is these legacy emissions that are at the root of the climate crisis we are told the world faces today. But instead of addressing the root causes of the crisis, namely the legacy emissions, we are focusing on contemporary emissions.
Africa cannot afford to abandon the hundreds of billions of barrels of proven crude reserves and hundreds of trillions SCUF of gas in the name of righting wrongs committed by others, especially when those others are still benefitting from the wrong actions they took and they have the capacity to right the wrong without denying others the opportunity to also use the same form of energy to better the lives of their peoples.
As we gather here and at the ICC in the next few days, we should be asking ourselves if the solutions that the developed countries are putting forward to address the climate challenge are the only or best solutions that shall bring justice all.
Put differently, it is imperative on African academics, intellectuals and thought leaders to put on their thinking caps and to see the imperative of a new paradigm shift in the search for solutions to the climate challenge.
For us in APPO, we have put on that cap already. We are looking at a new model for sustaining and growing the African energy industry.
Yesternight, HE Heineken Lokpobiri spoke about the Africa Energy Bank.
I am pleased to say that a decision on the country to host the Headquarters of the Bank shall be taken by the end of the 1st quarter of this year.
And the Bank shall take off by the end of the 1st half of this year.
We invite all people who believe that the oil and gas industry has key roles to play in the global energy mix for the foreseeable future to partner with us in our various projects from the Africa Energy Bank to the Regional Centers of Excellence and the provision of cross border and regional energy infrastructure. One needs not be a member of APPO nor even an African country or investor to be part of the AEB.
Before I conclude, let me once again thank visiting participants from other APPO Member Countries for the cooperation and collaboration that have characterized the new spirit of APPO since the reform.
I thank you for your kind attention.
