According to Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian oil sector needs investments.
On Thursday, February 22, 2018, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said the oil sector needs huge investments of about $100 billion.
Kachikwu said this while reeling off the urgent needs of the sector at the closing ceremony of the just-concluded maiden Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) in Abuja.
"We need to look at investments. What we have done over the last two years has helped."Suddenly we are looking at investment portfolios over the next two to three years of close to 40 billion dollars but 40 billion dollars is not enough to drive this industry.”
"Our estimate is that you need about 100 billion dollars worth of investment to drive this sector. Those investments will go into gas projects, they will go into pipelines that have been replaced. They will go into new plants; they will go into the flare policy of the government; they will go into the development of LPGs and CNGs.”
"We need to begin to convert our petrol consumption cars to gas and electricity drove cars so we can avoid some of the embarrassments we have in terms of our supply needs," he said.
According to him, every average Nigerian says the oil industry is not transparent despite all that has been done in the oil industry.
Other issues he listed that needed to be addressed urgently included security, cost of producing a barrel of crude and full deregulation. He urged Nigerian investors to come on board as his target was that the local production of oil output would in five years be 25%.