Nigeria Attracts Infrastructure Investment in Oil and Gas in China
…Signs MOUs with Chinese firms worth over $80 Billion
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC is excited to announce the outstanding success of its China investor’s roadshow. The Corporation has achieved its bid to bridge the infrastructure funding gaps in the Nigerian oil and gas sector. This comes in the form of a first of its kind road show in China where memorandum of understanding’s (MOU’s) worth over $80billion to be spent on investments in oil and gas infrastructure, pipelines, refineries, power, facility refurbishments and upstream has been signed with Chinese companies.
The Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu revealed this at the ongoing NNPC China Investors’ Roadshow organized by the Corporation to attract investors in China and the Asian sub region to invest in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector. The Honorable Minister of State and Group Managing Director of NNPC who is currently visiting China as a Special Envoy of the Nigerian President is leading a team of Top Management of the Corporation and Key Industry Stakeholders to showcase the investment opportunities which abound in the oil and gas value chain in Nigeria to the investors with a view to attracting funding and partnerships that would turn around the sector and place it among the best in the world.
Dr. Kachikwu, while speaking during the plenary of a special Investors’ Roundtable which had in attendance over 200 Chinese investors with key focus on the Oil and Gas Sector reiterated that the roadshow was organized as a follow up to the working visit of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari to China in April, 2016. He further commended the efforts and resolve of the President whose steer and support in ensuring that there is a marked transformation of the oil and gas industry has inspired the management to work towards the institutionalizing of focus, accountability, commitment and transparency at the corporation.
It is worthy to note that with the huge success so far recorded on the roadshow can be attributed to the leverage on Dr. Kachikwu's leadership in the sector and over 30 years of contact in the industry, considering that he has had cause to relate with most of the companies that have indicated interest in investing in Nigeria and these relationships cultivated over the years has also yielded fruits in that the MOUs for most of the companies signifying interest in investing in the country’s oil and gas sector have been signed. Some of the companies that are involved include NORINCO, CINDA, CNOOC, SINOPEC/ADDAX, ICC-NDRC amongst others.
Additionally the International Cooperation Commission (ICC) of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), in charge of implementing cooperation between Chinese governments, Foreign Governments and organizations have committed to developing an overarching master plan for the Nigerian oil and gas include that will include a detailed feasibility study of current status of existing infrastructure in the industry. They will also develop bankable projects that would attract Chinese investors on this Government-to-Government platform. This initiative would move us to a much more profitable and efficient state. The master plan would form the basis of massive inflow of further investment from Chinese companies into the sector.
At the end of the plenary, Dr. Kachikwu expressed his gratitude to the Chinese Government and investors for the show of support which reflects the growing international confidence in Nigeria's oil and gas sector following major reform which has been overseen under his leadership as both Group Managing Director of NNPC and Minister of State, Petroleum Resources over the last 7 months and also the belief in the government and integrity of President Buhari by foreign governments and investors. Dr. Kachikwu further mentioned that the China Roadshow is the first of many investor roadshows intended for the raising of funds to support the Oil & Gas Infrastructure roadmap. Road shows have been slated for India and the Gulf States.
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