GROUP Managing Director, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Andrew Yakubu, has charged stakeholders in the oil and gas sector to embrace diversification, stressing that the initiative was critical to the survival of the Nigeria's economy.
Yakubu disclosed that the country exports about 2.2m barrel crude oil per day, utilises about 200,000 barrel while over 1.5 million gas is flared on daily basis.
The NNPC chief while delivering a lecture titled, "Prospects of Resource Diversification in the Petroleum Industry" at the 9th Induction/ Anniversary ceremony of the Institute of Petroleum Studies (IPS), University of Port Harcourt, reasoned that the economy would be strengthened if all the flared gas could be channelled into other products.
Represented by the Coordinator, Corporate Planning and Strategy NNPC, Mr. Timothy Okon, Yakubu urged the stakeholders in the oil sector to think beyond oil and gas and diversify into areas that could hastily grow the economy.
He said, currently the fastest sector growing the Nigeria's economy was the telecom industry, which, according to him, had moved from one per cent to seven per cent. Yakubu also stressed the need to give priority to the agricultural sector.
He said: "There are non-oil filed industries we need to explore to grow our economy, therefore diversification is critical to our country survival."
The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Joseph Ajienka, noted that the uncertainty in the oil business had forced oil companies to drastically reduce their budget and suspended important projects.
He, however, expressed delight that continuous investment of NNPC and Total Exploration and Production Joint Venture into the IPS gave assurance of great future.
