Divestment: NAPE demands capacity in driving seat
- Declares readiness for NAICE 2024
Sopuruchi Onwuka
Nigeria Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) has advised government to seize the opportunity offered by the ongoing divestment programme in the country to reset operations in the industry by optimizing capacity with opportunity.
The admonition comes as the group declared readiness to host the global petroleum industry to an international confab scheduled to open in the second week of November.
President, Dr. Abiodun Ogunjobi, stated that the 2024 session of the Annual International Conference and Exhibition (AICE) would pool the largest gathering of petroleum explorationists in Africa to debate on “Resolving the Nigerian Energy Trilemma: Energy Security, Sustainable Growth, and Affordability.”
“We aim to inspire the next wave of transformative ideas and solutions, and this year’s event is already shaping up to be an extraordinary platform for discussions that will define the future of energy in Africa,” Dr Ogunjobi declared.
He added that NAPE AICE 2024 would serve as a hub for knowledge exchange, featuring specialized sessions that touch on critical areas such as energy security, sustainability, affordability, energy transition, and much more.
The conference organizing committee led by the President-Elect, Mr JohnBosco Uche, also stated that the event would for a robust debate platform for harnessing pan-industry opinion to shape the future of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria’s and Africa.
Dr Ogunjobi told media representatives at a briefing that part of the targets of the conference was to evolve strategies for leveraging the prevailing divestment programmes in the country’s petroleum industry to propel growth and enhance local operating capacity.
He said the conference would explore way of developing homegrown solutions to drive sustainable Nigeria’s economy, industries and society by diversifying energy sources and guaranteeing flow of all forms of energy products to consumers in the country.
He stated that NAPE has remained a reliable source of policy propositions in the industry-government collaboration in building a resilient system that delivers multi-dimensional solutions to energy supply challenges in the country.
The approach, he pointed put, demands balancing industry operations with environmental responsibility by investing in technologies and new systems that deliver available and affordable energy for everyone.
Dr Ogunjobi said that NAPE was developing strategies that would involve every stakeholder work together in addressing issues that affect resilient and efficient energy delivery systems.
Incoming President of the group, Mr JohnBosco Uche, added that through the conference and other policy propositions, NAPE would be relentless in improving the nation’s current poor rating in the global energy security index.
He said that NAPE believes that Nigeria could leverage the current divestment exercise in the country and the already efficient Nigerian content development implementation that the right people with capacity and expertise are placed in the driving seat of industry growth.
“Knowing where capacity sits is very important,” Mr Uche said.
