The Foreign Investment Network – FIN United Kingdom organised a virtual meeting on Tuesday, 12th December 2020, themed “Global Investment Outlook for Upstream Oil & Gas Post COVID-19.”

FIN is known for facilitating Foreign Direct Investment across the Oil & Gas Sector in Global and Developing Economies. In attendance at the meeting was the Director of Invictus Energy Australia, Dr Stuart Lake, the Chief Executive Officer of Crystol Energy London, Dr Carole Nakhle, the Chief Executive Officer of Waltersmith Petroman Oil Nigeria, Engineer Chike Nwosu, the immediate past COO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Past Director Exxon Mobil & Current Board Member – Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, Engineer Henry Ikem Obi, and others.

In a welcome address, the Head of Oil & Gas at the Foreign Investment Network, Wofai Samuel said, ”Every sector has been negatively hit by COVID-19, but perhaps the Oil & Gas Industry has endured the most colossal setback, compelling Exploration and Production Companies to either halt or slow down their physical operations.”

According to Dr Stuart, “The price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s collapse in Oil Prices and the global demand dropped by 30 million barrels of oil per day which wiped off about a decade of demand growth has made E&P activities even more challenging than previous years. In Africa we’ve seen a lot of spending go down. Final investment decisions that were planned on many projects haven’t actually been executed this year. We’ve also seen production down with the NOCs, particularly our OPEC members. It’s been a very challenging year for everyone irrespective of race or nationality. We’ve seen big write-downs across the world but luckily in Australia we’ve seen prices recover and investment sentiments improve substantially. We still expect the M&A field to keep increasing, there’s a lot of companies with debt on their books that has to be addressed, he concluded. On E&P investments in Africa, He explained that Invictus Energy is the only operator on ground in Zimbabwe with exploration assets, having taken over from Mobil”.

Engineer Nwosu said, “I know the government has reduced taxes but it doesn’t necessarily affect the kind of Foreign Direct Investment that you need. When an investor comes in, he is first faced with Fiscal nature of the regime as they are to pay higher royalties. There should be no royalty on gas until we get our gas business and market in place, even then we shouldn’t be too keen to raise more government revenue through taxes. In the downstream and modular refineries, government has to get involved in Crude fixed up supply process with other producers. The refining margins so far, are very low. Lastly, Government needs to implement policies that at the very minimum gas purchase and crude oil fixed stock for domestic consumption is priced in Nigeria’s local currency, Naira.

Dr Carole said, “Like any other producing country, investment has been badly affected in the UK. There’s an additional challenge in the UK North Sea which is where the UK gets its oil and gas out of shore. That adds to the challenge for investors because investors usually look for substantial growth, size, big discoveries and the chances of this happening in the UK North Sea are smaller and smaller as time passes”.

Engineer Henry said, “The realization of the refinery roadmap will ultimately lead us to becoming a net exporter of petroleum products not only to our neighbouring countries but to the worldwide market. This modular refinery is the largest commissioned modular refinery in the country today.”

The meeting had representatives from four continents, twenty-one countries, twenty Operating Oil Companies, three investors, Government across Africa and Senior Oil & Gas Managers from Nigeria, Texas, Russia, Washington DC, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Arkansas, Abu Dhabi, South Africa, Chicago, Libya, Switzerland, Atlanta, Mexico, Oman, Canada, India, New-York, Israel, Ghana, Kenya, California, London, South Sudan, Portugal, France, Burundi and Cameroon.

Also present were officials from Rain oil Limited, Dangote Refineries, DPR, NAPIMS, NNPC, PwC, Addax Petroleum, Seplat, Naphthali & Naphtali PM Limited, Shell Petroleum etc.