Nigeria taps Chinese investment

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation group managing director Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu has reportedly signed oil and gas investment agreements with Chinese companies to the tune of USD 80 billion, Nigerian media reported on Thursday.

Kachikwu is in China for a roadshow in an effort to tap Chinese investment in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, and told This Day that several Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) had already been signed. “I can confirm that we had a successful outing and finally raised investment commitments and signed MoUs worth $80 billion,” the minister was quoted as saying.

Some 70 USD billion of that sum will be directed towards and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation projects whereas China National Offshore Oil Corporation and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation are looking to pledge an additional USD 20 billion over the next five years to upstream operations, Kachikwu also said, potentially bringing the total investment volume to USD 100 billion.

Other companies the minister signed MoUs with include China North industries Corporation, which intends to pour USD 8.5 billion in the Nigerian upstream business, Chem China, China Cinda Asset Management Company and the International Co-operation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission of China.

Kachikwu also touched upon the country’s recent uptick in violence across its oil-rich regions, saying production had all but been restored. “In May and June, we suffered a lot of militant attacks which took us all the way down from 2.2 million barrels to about 1.3 million […] we have managed to begin to lead conversations with the militants. We have been able to get production back to about 1.9 million barrels a day,” he said. According to the minister, levels of 2.2 million bopd should be reached by July.