Global oil and gas expert Evar Umeozor says Nigeria’s bid rounds will only succeed if the country tackles investor risk head-on, warning that transparency alone will not unlock fresh capital into the upstream sector.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday regarding global crude dynamics and Nigeria’s investment outlook, Umeozor said, “With regards to the bid rounds, at the end of the day, what is the expectation in Nigeria, is to attract investment. Attracting investment in Nigeria means you have to create the enabling environment for investors to come. Investors need to feel that their investment will be secure, and issues with pipeline disruptions and theft of crude oil would be minimised.”
Umeozor acknowledged recent reforms as steps in the right direction, particularly the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which he said was designed to improve fiscal terms and make Nigeria more appealing to investors.
However, he argued that Nigeria must go further by strengthening its technical and fiscal planning tools. According to him, the absence of a robust national upstream fiscal model limits the country’s ability to test different cost and tax scenarios.
He said, “The fiscal regime that actually becomes operative would be one that is favorable for investors to make a return on their investments. So in that regard, all the recent changes, with the PIA coming in, with the law designed in a way to improve, investment attractiveness in Nigeria, and also with the open bidding rounds that’s been introduced to make more transparency and provide the data that’s required for potential investors to be able to understand the economic returns that could potentially be garnered from their investment in Nigeria, these are positives. But also, the ability to be able to run physical simulation scenarios.”
Melissa Enoch
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