NAPE urges govt to address nation's gas master plan

THE Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) on Friday said there was need for the government to address the nation's gas master plan to attract investors.The President of the association, Jide Ojo, said this in Lagos, while briefing journalists on the association's forthcoming pre-conference workshop slated for October 25.Ojo said that the ratio of gas exportation to importation was low due to inadequate incentives to drill wells.'In Nigeria, we don't have complete and comprehensive framework of gas standard incentive to drill gas well.'No investor or company would deliberately go out to drill gas well because the required remunerations and incentives are not there to encourage investors,'' he said.Ojo said that Nigeria had large gas reserves, which ought to have been converted into economic value, but the opportunity had not been optimally utilised.He said that the association had taken it upon itself to tackle the issues of developing Nigerian gas market, commercialising existing discoveries and encouraging exploration.The expertsaid that a significant proportion of the projected increase in energy demand was expected from fossil fuel, adding that there was increasing pressure on identifying new reserves.'Nations endowed with hydrocarbon reserves will continually need to create a business environment that will encourage greater investment,'' he said.The theme of the pre-conference workshop is``Developing the Nigerian Gas Market, Commercializing existing Discoveries and Encouraging Exploration''.Meanwhile, the President of the Network for Energy Reform in Nigeria, a non-governmental body, Kunle Olubiyo, has called on the Federal Government to introduce measures to encourage competition inenergy generation in the country.Olubiyo made the call onFridayin Abuja while speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
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