Nigeria’s path to an economic renaissance

April 3, 2023

Segun Sowande, partner and head of energy and natural resources for KPMG in Nigeria, talks to The Energy Year about challenges in the Nigerian oil and gas industry and how companies can take advantage of the IOC divestment trend. KPMG is one of the largest audit and accounting firms in the world.

What main challenges do you see the Nigerian oil and gas market facing?
On the macro level, the main challenges for Nigeria’s oil and gas sector are the issues of safety and security of operations, crude oil theft and energy value chain decarbonisation. These, by extension, impact other areas, particularly investment flow. Although there have been some improvements in security in the Niger Delta in the recent past, product theft has risen to its highest level ever. Some operators are even reported to have made zero returns on oil production at some point.
It is apparent this trend is being perpetrated by organised crime syndicates with the capability to even target underground pipelines during the construction phase with the sole objective of siphoning crude oil and other petroleum liquids at will during the operational phase. Some of the stolen crudes are feedstock for illegal refineries, and the governor of Rivers State recently made a statement about increasing efforts to dismantle these illegal refineries.
As a result of these and other challenges, Nigeria has not been able to meet its function echoPub() {document.getElementById('pub').innerHTML="

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