By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja
The Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State has said that with widespread poverty and limited energy access, African countries cannot afford to abandon its 125 billion barrels of crude oil and over 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.
The Principal and Chief Executive of PTI, Dr. Samuel Onoji, stated this on Monday in Abuja ahead of the institute’s 4th Biennial International Conference on Hydrocarbon Science and Technology, scheduled to begin on Wednesday.
He said Nigeria and other African countries must leverage their hydrocarbon resources to drive economic growth and industrial development.
Onoji explained that PTI was partnering with other agencies of government and industry operators to develop technology that would ensure that hydrocarbon fuels are cleaner.
According to him, “As the world grapples with energy transition utilization of fossil fuels to cleaner and more environmentally friendly sources of energy, the Petroleum Training Institute through this conference has taken a bold step to kick-start research and development effort that takes cognizance of the peculiarity of Africa’s hydrocarbon situation.
“With an estimated 125 billion barrels of crude oil reserves and over 600tcf of natural gas reserves in Africa, it is our considered opinion that Africa should not hasten to abandon fossil fuel but should strive to deepen research and development of local technologies that enable the exploitation and utilization of our oil and gas endowment in a more environmentally friendly manner as the reality of global demand for fossil fuel is expected to linger for the next 50 years.
“Today, we are confronted with the stark reality that only a few African countries have been able to master certain aspects of oil production technology and fabricate key machineries for the industry. Thus, this conference intends to focus on research in these key areas with the aim of developing local content capacity in oil technology”.
The post Why Africa should not abandon 125bn barrels oil reserves — PTI appeared first on Vanguard News.
