Bandele highlights key to efficient gas development in Nigeria

The Deputy Managing Director, Deep Water Assets, Mr. Victor Bandele has advocated a deliberate programme to develop the country’s gas reserves. 

Bandele spoke as a discussant at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition (NAICE2023) Panel Session on the topic "Role of FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) in the efficient development of natural gas reserves to meet Africa’s energy security demands." He also gave insight into why TotalEnergies seems to have defied the odds and continued investments in Nigeria. 

“When you are deliberate you will not only be planning for the immediate, but you are also planning for the future,” he said, outlining how deliberate the company has been in contributing to the development of gas in the country while reducing its carbon footprint. He highlighted projects the company had undertaken to reduce gas flare in the process up to the flagship Egina field. 

“Egina is flareless. We are bringing on a new field that will be tied on to Egina. The name is Preowei. FEED is going on; FID 2024; first oil should be before 2027.This field is completely flareless. By the end of this year, TotalEnergies in Nigeria will have no production in any our installation where there is routine flare.” He also disclosed that the company has a new entity that is looking at Solar infrastructure in Nigeria. 

He explained that the company’s approach was “deliberate because we appreciate that any where we are we need to operate in a responsible manner.” Carbon footprint reduction has become a very big subject for us, a consciousness that is also amongst the contractors. It has a multiplier effect, he explained. 

“We should not underestimate the impact our dialogue is bringing to the business,” he said urging stakeholders to bring ideas about how to move the industry forward especially on the fiscal terms.” Bandele called for more attention to be given to non-associated gas. He noted that by 2022 statistics, the country has over 200 TCF and about 50% is non-associated gas (NAG). 

He observed that the country needs to find infrastructure for producing non-associated gas that will be suitable for gas development and enable a fiscal environment suitable for people to bring money to develop gas as a single item.

“We must be deliberate about the production of NAG, not just production of gas as a byproduct of oil,” Bandele said, emphasizing that there is no way we would produce NAG today based on the same terms and conditions that we are using for associated gas.

While noting the clarity brought to the industry by the Petroleum Industry Act, the Members of the panel also said to attract FDI, the country must deal with corruption; ensure fiscals with attractive tax rates; ease of capital movement in and out of the country; efficiency of legal, regulatory process and the security situation in the environment.

Fielding questions on how Nigeria had defied the odds to invest, he explained that TotalEnergies is optimistic about Nigeria and is keen to remain relevant in Nigeria hence its presence in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors.
He expressed optimism that like other areas where Nigerians had excelled, anything that the country gets right, the leap is dramatic, and it blossoms. He also noted that the human resource in Nigeria was enormous.
The conference held from July 31 – August 2, 2023, at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. The theme of the 2023 NAICE was "Balancing Energy Accessibility, Affordability, and Sustainability: Strategic Options for Africa."