BY HABEEB ADAMU
Nigeria has earned over $1 billion from the sale of natural gas to Portugal in 2022 alone, according to the state-owned oil company, NNPC.
Africa’s largest economy also plans in the next five years to begin the massive exports of Liquified Natural Gas to Portugal and other European countries.
Mele Kyari, group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said this on Thursday at the Nigeria-Portugal Business & Trade Forum held on the sidelines of the 2nd UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, which saw Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and his Portuguese counterpart, Marcelo Sousa, lead other top officials of both countries to a visit to the NNPC exhibition centre. The Nigeria-Portugal Business & Trade Forum was organised as part of measures to unlock fresh investments in critical sectors of the Nigerian economy.
Kyari said Nigeria is part of the sovereignty of energy security in Portugal and that as a matter of fact, Portugal is insulated from the ongoing energy challenges in Europe because of the quantum of gas supply from Nigeria.
“We are working to put extensive infrastructure on ground to ensure more supply to Europe and we are working with the European Union. We are on the Moroccan pipeline to ensure that we export to Europe and to ensure that in a very short time, in no more than five years, we will see massive LNG supply from Nigeria into Portugal,” he said.
Prior to the exhibition, Kyari had told investors and other participants at the event that NNPC is the best partner for them to do business with in the oil and gas sector.
“We are the best partners you can find. NNPC is the largest capitalised company in Africa, we also supply 70 percent of LNG into Portugal. And that’s why they are practically isolated from the crisis of Ukraine today because their supply is coming from Nigeria,” Kyari said.
“And there’s absolute opportunities today for us to grow this supply by working with us. We are putting up mass infrastructure in our country to ensure that gas is made available into our domestic market and also increase supply into the international market,” he said.
The NNPC GMD commended the Portuguese government for doing business with Nigeria and expressed optimism that the visit of President Buhari to Portugal will unlock more business opportunities for both countries.
“We are happy and thank you very much for doing business. This year alone we have sold over $1 billion worth of natural gas into Portugal. So, you are our biggest partner around here and we are happy to work with you, our country is changing, our company is changing, we have a perfect environment today in our country,” he said.
