From Okwe Obi, Abuja.
Director General, Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM), Amina Benkhadra, has said that Nigeria and other African countries need over $100 billion annual investment by 2030, to fix the protracted electricity challenges.
Benkhadra, who stated this at the Africa Gas Innovation Summit (AGIS), yesterday in Abuja, said Africa is faced with low electrification rate, low agricultural yields, lowest integration rate on the continent, and a deficit in advanced structures.
This she said has heightened the need for investment in the region, a need for the development of innovations and new technology.
“And when we see the energy needs, it is important to highlight that to satisfy the increasing African electricity demand, large investment of over $100 billion annually in the power sector by 2030 and at the same time, Africa’s growing electricity conception requires substantial investments in power infrastructure up to $3 trillion by 2050.
“And all we can see also that with its huge reserves of gas, the current gas infrastructure project pipeline can equate $245 billion with more than 90 per cent in the concept stage and to unlock Africa’s energy future, we will need to develop major infrastructure projects both at the level of national and local projects.
“So we have to raise the ambitions of Africa’s energy strategy to increase the power generation capacity, to deepen the reforms of our energy governance, to encourage public partnership, and private partnership investment, mobilize those international investments that we have seen just before and contribute to development through technology and innovation approaches,” she said.
Speaking on the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline which was proposed in December 2016 by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the ONHYM, she said that will contribute to accelerating electrification and energy sufficiency in areas covered and contribute to economic integration and development of industrial sectors.
According to her, “The $25 billion pipeline would connect Nigerian gas to every coastal country in West Africa (Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania), ending at Tangiers, Morocco, and Cádiz, Spain.
“It would apparently be an extension of the existing West African Gas Pipeline, which already connects Nigeria with Benin, Togo, and Ghana.”
Benkhadra further stressed the need for leaders to consider that the role of emerging and developing countries, especially a lot of African countries, is now an essential component in achieving the global transition to an efficient system compatible with the imperatives of sustainable development. She stated that Africa can and must play a role in the transition particularly Nigeria with its crucial resources.
Noting that Gas is the backbone of the energy transition, the DG said there was a need to reinforce cooperation between African countries and also between Morocco and Nigeria who failed several strategic projects in energy, agriculture, and especially gas.