Nigeria might lose $10bn oil revenue in 2015 – Total MD

Nigeria’s revenue from crude oil sales could drop by a whopping $10 billion this year, according to the Managing Director of Total Exploration and Production Nigeria, Elizabeth Proust.

Proust made the disclosure on Thursday, April 23, 2015, at the 2015 Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum (OLEF) organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Council in Abuja.

“There is no doubt that the crude oil prices that we are experiencing today are having a severe adverse impact on the revenues of both producers and host governments globally,” she said.

“Unfortunately, Nigeria is not immune to this revenue squeeze. We estimate that if crude oil price averages $53 per barrel in 2015, compared to $77.5 in 2014, the Federal Government of Nigeria’s oil and gas revenue will decline by about $10bn this year, or a gut reaching 30 per cent,” she added.

“Total allocation to state governments was N620bn in the last quarter of 2014, as the oil price was sliding, 15 per cent lower than the same quarter of 2013. This is resulting in the slowing or cancelling of many infrastructure projects that Nigeria desperately needs,” Proust said.

The Total MD stated the need to push for new technologies such as subsea and floating LNG that could drive down costs and help unlock deep-water oil and gas.

She also advised on the use of fibre optics technologies for monitoring pipelines in order to ensure integrity surveillance and checkmate security issues in onshore and shallow water production.