the crash in oil prices will have a collateral effect on the country’s economy, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said on Wednesday.
The NNPC also stated that the low oil prices could drag on till the end of the year.
The corporation’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, said these when he received members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers at the headquarters of the oil in Abuja.
Kyari listed over-supply and the outbreak of the COVID-19, which had led to a considerable fall in the price of crude oil, as the two major challenges facing the oil and gas industry today.
“The combination of these two events means that there would be a lull in activities in the oil industry, and if forecasts are right, we may witness very low oil prices throughout the year and that will have a collateral effect on the economy,” he stated.
The GMD urged professionals to come up with a blueprint on how to get things done economically in order to minimise the negative impact of the current situation on the industry.
He said NNPC had repositioned its research and development business into an innovation centre that could provide the needed solution and services for the technological development in the petroleum industry.
Kyari further challenged professionals in the Nigerian petroleum sector to come up with solutions to tackle current challenges facing the industry.
The President, SPE, Joe Uwakwe, said the business of his society was to seek technical solutions to industry problems.
He noted that the present challenges required the development of technology to produce crude oil in a cost-efficient manner.
Uwakwe assured Kyari that professionals in the industry would do what was necessary to overcome the present challenges.
Copyright PUNCH.