Abuja, Nigeria | – The Nigerian minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, on Monday stated that reforms initiated and executed by the federal government in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry within the last two years had earned the sector the confidence of international oil companies (IOCs) who he noted had requested to invest over $15 billion in the sector, Nigerian newspaper ThisDay reports.
Kachikwu said in a podcast he released in Abuja that at the moment IOCs were beginning to believe in Nigeria’s reforms in the oil sector and its systems. “We were able to exit the joint venture cash call – still a bit of things to be ironed out there, but for the first time multinationals began to have belief in their need to invest in the country.”
“The amount of investment requests we are seeing from joint venture cash call members is today in excess of $14 to 15 billion dollars which are for purposes of projects like Zabazaba, Bonga extension programmes and all that – multinationals are beginning to have confidence that this system is working,” said Kachikwu in the podcast.
