By Modupe Gbadeyanka
There has been a huge campaign in Western societies against the use of fossil fuel because of the harm it does to the earth, with the use of renewable energy being pushed as an alternative.
To get many nations to move in this direction, the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016 to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future.
But a renowned Nigerian engineer, investor and Director for Houston-based National Oilwell Varco, Dr Babajide Agunbiade, has advised sub-Saharan Africa to still stick to the oil and gas to power its economy.
In an interview, he explained that oil remains the only commodity that can satisfy the demands of an increasing population and increase the earnings of the governments.
He said in the advanced economies, it is true that the use of fossil fuel is declining because of the use of renewable energy, but stressed that in the third world countries, oil still remains their dependable source of energy.
The energy guru with over 20 years’ experience in the oil industry and one of the world’s leading offshore production experts, noted that as a result of the enormous deposits of oil and gas, operators and service companies are doing what they can to optimise production cost and continue producing the commodity.
“In Africa, [oil] is still the only commodity that can satisfy the demands of an increasing population, an expanding middle class, and in some cases, the main source of governments’ earnings. We still have a lot of oil,” he asserted.
“As stated, a lot of these African countries do depend substantially on oil revenue for survival. Oil still plays a large role in these sub-Saharan countries’ economies, accounting for up to 40 per cent of GDP and 80 per cent to 90 per cent of governments’ earnings,” Dr Agunbiade said.
The Director of National Oilwell Varco, the largest oilfield equipment manufacturing company in the world, said 90 per cent of the earnings of the government of Nigeria come from oil and the same as Angola, Gabon, and the rest of oil-producing countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
With these figures, he was convinced that the shift to renewable energy at the expense of oil and gas in sub-Saharan Africa has not been the focus for now, and this must change.
“There is no push for anything different. They are still aggressively trying to source foreign exchange, which for the most part, they can only do that through oil,” he opined.
According to him, wind energy, electric cars, and a lot of other renewable energy options and integrated gasification in the combined cycle, IGCC from coal have to come into play.
Adedapo Adesanya