Nigeria’s role in EU gas supply security discussed at industry event

Paul Boughton

On the side of the 11th EU-OPEC Energy Dialogue Ministerial Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, Diezani Alison-Madueke, the Honourable Minister for Petroleum Resources for Nigeria and Alternate President of the OPEC Conference, held discussions with Günther Oettinger, the EU Energy Commissioner.

The discussions focused on the role Nigeria can play in supporting the EU’s energy sector priorities, and particularly the long-term security and diversification of gas supplies. Alison-Madueke highlighted that gas production has increased to over 8 billion cubic feet per day, and Nigeria is the eighth largest gas producer in the world, and sixth largest gas supplier to Europe.

Alison-Madueke emphasised that furthermore, Nigeria has over 180 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of discovered reserves and up to 600 tcf of undiscovered gas reserves, so significant investment is planned to support expansion of the sector over the coming years. Whilst increasing domestic power generation is a priority for the government, export capacity will also rapidly grow, particularly as new LNG projects are completed.

Oettinger said that he recognises the long-term potential of Nigeria’s energy sector and would welcome further discussions to explore ways for greater collaboration between the EU and Nigeria.

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