The Minister of state for petroleum resources, Timipre Sylva, has said that appreciable progress and landmark achievements have been made in the oil and gas sector of the economy in line with the nine priority areas handed down to the ministry by president Muhammadu Buhari administration.
While making a presentation during the ‘President Muhammadu Buhari Administration Score Card spanning 2015 to 2023’ in Abuja Nigeria’s capital, Sylva said that one of the major achievements of the Federal Government is the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which has opened up the sector, and has created an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
“The Ministry has succeeded in passing landmark statutes such as the deep offshore and Inland Basin Act as well as the petroleum Industry Act PIA . It has also secured funding for the rehabilitation of the three existing refineries in Nigeria”, he revealed.
Other areas of achievement by the Ministry and its Agencies include the enhancement of local refining capacity, implementation of the decade of Gas initiatives, launching of National Gas Expansion programme, incorporation of NNPC Limited, increase in the establishment of Liquified petroleum Gas LPG plants and Modular refineries among others.
“As a ministry we identified the development of gas as one area of priority so we launched the National gas expansion programme, we are also able to secure a250 billion dollar intervention facility from the Central Bank of Nigeria”, he said.
The minister added that the petroleum Ministry is well on track to actualise the hopes and aspirations of President Muhammadu Buhari to reposition the oil and gas sector for the benefit of all Nigerians.
During the years under review, Mr Sylva said the ministry identified the need for the development of the downstream sector, and has succeeded in monitoring and tracking of product distribution to check the menace of petroleum product diversion in the country.
“We relaunched project White, for monitoring and tracking of product distribution nationwide, 255659 truck out equalised, 11, 622,926 liters equalized, all paid from equalisation fund’ , Timipre Sylva revealed.
In the area of pipeline security, the Minister said signing contracts for pipeline surveillance and security with relevant authorities, remains a major achievement of the present government.
“The ministry emplaced Contract for pipeline surveillance and security, setting up of control center for crude oil movement tracking has also been achieved”, he said.
Between 2015-2023, Sylva said the Ministry is well on track to actualise the hopes and aspirations of President Muhammadu Buhari to reposition the oil and gas sector for the benefit of all Nigerians.
