INCONSISTENCY IN POLICY MAKING ROBS NIGERIA OF $6BN TOTALENERGIES PROJECT
Patrick Pouyanne, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TotalEnergies, has explained why the company is investing a whooping sum of $6 billion in energy projects in Angola instead of Nigeria.
While speaking with panellists of the Africa CEOs in Kigali, Rwanda,recently, the TotalEnergies CEO, said that inconsistency in policy making decisions robbed Nigeria the project which is now taken to Angola, a country with a more stable policy framework.
Pouyanne, who observed that though the Niger Delta is the most productive region in West Africa added that the erratic policy environment has made investment impossible.
While stating that, TotalEnergies has not conducted oil exploration in the Niger Delta region for 12 years, he said,
“Nigeria loves to open topics without closing them. You love to debate. There is always a new legislature in Nigeria about a new petroleum law. When you have such permanent debates, it’s difficult for investors looking for long-term structure to know what direction to go.”
“In reality, the Niger Delta is the most prolific part of West Africa. But if you look at what happened, because of these debates, there has not been a single exploration in Nigeria for 12 years.”
“It’s important to have a debate and then settle it and put a framework on the table that investors can trust.”
“We have countries that have perfectly integrated policies like Angola. So, we go to Angola and announced a very large $6 billion projects in the beginning of the week because there their framework is stable. So we know where we go.”
On insecurity, the TotalEnergies helmsman stated that insecurity and the lack of human capital are two of the main issues facing investment in the country and aded that investors need the guarantee that their investments are secured and not exposed to violence and demolition.
Patrick Pouyanne, who further, said that the company is training individuals to boost human capital and required talents needed in the oil and gas sector, added that “What are the challenges? Security comes first. For a CEO like me, security of my people is of utmost important. Fortunately, we have customs in the Niger Delta to deal with it.
“We also have finding talent has a difficulty. In some countries like Nigeria and Rwanda, we find difficult to find talent. Some of them have difficulty in education. And we can contribute to that. That’s some of the things we do, training people.”
