The Group General Manager of the National Petroleum Investment Management Services said that Nigeria would require between $750bn and $800bn investments to deliver between 3.5 million and four million barrels of crude oil per day and incountry midstream conversion capability and requisite Downstream infrastructure

He said this on Tuesday in Abuja at a panel session held at the Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference with the theme, “Funding the Nigerian energy mix for sustainable economic growth.”

Wunti appeared at one of the panel sessions with the theme, “Energy transition: Making Nigeria the preferred Africa energy investment hub.”

He said Nigeria has abundant resources of crude oil and gas but added that this can only translate to value for the country if they are harnessed and produced for the benefit of the Nigerian people.

He told participants at the event that time has come for Nigeria to look inwards and develop its huge oil and gas potentials by structuring the industry to attract the much needed investments that would create wealth and prosperity for the country accross the oil and gas value chain.

He called for stronger partnership and collaboration among stakeholders in the oil and gas sector, particularly in the area of finance, project execution, and technology development.

Giving a breakdown of the investments required, Wunti said that Nigeria needs about $400bn in the upstream and midstream segment of the value chain of the economy, while another $250bn investment would be required in the Downstream sector accross the country in oder to ensure energy access

He said, ” What we have today is not oil but reserves, and it is only when you produce the reserves that you have oil and the gas that will translate to value. We need technology, funding, project, and operational expertise to convert this oil from reserves to use able hydrocarbon

“We need $400bn in upstream and midstream, we need another $250bn in for Downstream and all together we require between $750bn and $800bn of investments for us to be be able to deliver about 3.5 million to four million barrels of oil and about 4 to 5 Bcfd of gas to domestic market while meeting our export aspiration. To be able to have that, we have positioned ourselves to convert about 50 per cent of that domestic gas to chemicals , and that requires capital.

“And so we need stronger collaboration between the asset operators, the investors, and the service providers, and all of you will soon be investors because NNPC has aspiration to go public very soon.

“Together with the service providers who are currently represented in this room today, we need that collaboration to create a homegrown solution in the form of technology and whatever combination we need to get.