President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to Iran to attend Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) presented a good platform for Nigeria to share ideas among the member states of the forum on how to compete favourably in the global gas market.
The GECF is the gathering of the world’s 18 leading gas producing countries to provide a framework for the exchange of experience, views, information and data, as well as coordination in gas-related developments among member countries.
The countries in the forum are Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman and Peru.
The forum also accounts for 42 per cent of global gas output, 70 per cent of global gas reserves, 40 per cent of pipe gas transmission and 65 per cent of global trade of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
At the end of the meeting, member countries issued a declaration that underscored the need for them to work together over the security of natural gas supplies to the global market.
Mr Rasaq Ogunfuyi, an analyst, said Nigeria would benefit from the meeting as Buhari had said that Nigeria was taking appropriate steps to turn its abundant gas resources into veritable catalyst for development.
At the meeting, Buhari said Nigeria was taking the steps because natural gas was fast evolving as the fuel of choice for sustainable development.
He argued that the country was also taking the steps in view of impressive suitability of natural gas for environmental protection and lower cost of supply in comparison with fossil fuels.
He, therefore, charged the leadership of the GECF to take appropriate steps towards sustaining the pricing of gas at the international market for the benefit of member countries.
Buhari insisted that the stability of the energy and financial market was critical to ensuring investments in current and future natural gas projects.
“It is therefore imperative that the GECF plays a significant role towards energy security by driving the formulation of a sustainable pricing mechanism that will guarantee fair and reasonable for both producers and consumers,’’ he adds.
“Our current National Proven Gas Reserve Base is 188 trillion cubic feet, but our actual gas potential may be in excess of 600 trillion cubic feet.
“With this great potential, Nigeria is taking appropriate steps to turn its abundant gas resources into veritable catalyst for development,’’ he said.
Buhari also urged the forum to foster technical and economic cooperation among member states.
According to him, Nigeria remains the hub for natural gas supply in West African sub region with the construction of 681-kilometre West African gas pipeline which currently transmits gas from the country to neighbouring Benin, Togo and Ghana.
“Nigeria is among the world’s top five exporters of LNG and we recently celebrated the 3000th export cargo milestone.
“Similarly, we have asserted regional prominence by becoming the hub for natural gas supply in the West African sub-region,’’ Buhari said.
The president charged the forum on the need to deploy research and development initiatives towards technology innovations in exploration and development processing, logistics and marketing for the benefit of member countries.
He called on the member countries to ensure that the exploration of gas resources was done in a sustainable manner so as not to jeopardise the security of the future generation of member states.
He urged them to ensure optimum gas reserves replacement and work towards ending routine gas flaring in the shortest possible time.
Similarly, the Chairman of the forum and the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, solicited cooperation of member states to get maximum benefits from the natural resources.
Acknowledging Rouhani’s viewpoints, Mr Seyed Hossein Adeli, the Secretary-General of the forum, encouraged member states of GECF to have mutual understanding and address the common challenges facing gas producing nations.
At an interactive session with the Nigerian community at the Nigerian House in Tehran, Iran, Buhari said “we have a lot of gas, we have a lot of qualified people but again we have a lot of saboteurs who go and blow installations.
“Those, who normally steal Nigerian crude (oil) and those, who blow up installations, whether they called themselves militants or whatever, they are still there.’’
Buhari said that the government would deal with such saboteurs and those who stole public funds to restore sanity in the power sector and improve service delivery to Nigerians.
“On corruption, yes, they are still innocent, but we are collecting documents and some of them have started voluntarily returning something. But we want all.
“When we get those documents then we will formally charge them to court and then we will tell Nigerians to know those who abused trust when they were entrusted with public funds,’’ he said.
He noted that those accused of corruption would have been prosecuted but there was need to thoroughly investigate them with a view to gathering enough evidence for their trials.
According to him, at the moment, the dictates of the rule of law and due process make the prosecution of corruption cases slow.
On efforts by the Federal Government to improve power supply, the president attributed the epileptic power supply in the country to “power saboteurs who go and blow up installations.
“I believe if you are in touch back at home, you would have been told that already there is some improvement in power.
On security, Buhari reassured Nigerians of government’s resolve to eliminate the Boko Haram insurgency and restore peace in the north-eastern states of the country.
He also restated government’s determination to address the rot in the country’s educational system, beginning from the primary school level to the tertiary level.
The president used the opportunity of the visit to commend the Nigerian community in Iran for good conduct.
He said that government would continue to encourage more Nigerians to study in that country because of the level of discipline and orderliness there.
The Nigerian Charge de Affairs in Iran, Dr Ali Magashi, attested to the zero crime rates among Nigerians living in Iran.
Irrespective of this, Nigerian students in Iran appealed to the Federal Government to offer them scholarships to enable them to complete their studies.
Malam Auwal Kabuga, who spoke on behalf of the students during an interactive session with president, said that more than 260 Nigerian students studying in Iran were not on Federal Government scholarship.
“Mr President, we are appealing to your government to grant us scholarships to ease our hardship during the course of our study in Iran.
“We will also recommend the establishment of collaboration between Nigerian universities and Iranian universities for mutual benefits.
“We will like to appeal to Nigeria Immigration Service to establish a point of issuance of e-passport in Iran,’’ he said.
Responding, Buhari said he had already directed all his ministers to start work immediately so that Nigerians could feel government’s impact.
Besides, the president also said that he had directed the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, to go ahead with the planned work on major road projects across the country.
All in all, observers believe that the president’s visit to Iran will further strengthen the bilateral relations between Nigeria and Iran for the benefits of both countries, noting that the visit also afforded Nigerians in Iran to express their views.
