Exploring the theme ‘Balancing Energy Accessibility, Affordability and Sustainability’ by Engineer Adokiye Tombomieye at NIACE 2023 Annual Conference.
Representing the GCO, Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited Mr. Kolo Kyari, the Executive Vice President (Upstream) of NNPC Limited, Engineer Adokiye Tombomieye delivered the industry address at the 2023 National Nigerian International Conference and Exhibition (NIACE), with the theme of ‘Balancing Energy Accessibility, Affordability and Sustainability’ and the strategic options for Africa.
According to Engineer Adokiye Tombomieye, ‘African countries grapple with strategies for balancing energy availability with meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) No. 7 of affordable and clean energy and No. 13 which talks about climate actions’. This therefore points to a gap that must be filled, which is confronted in the key points stressed by Engineer Tombomieye that focuses on energy accessibility, affordability and sustainability.
These three vital points, energy accessibility, affordability and sustainability, as described by Engineer Tombomieye involve – ensuring all civilians can access reliable modern energy regardless of location or social status, whilst ensuring that energy and its infrastructure are priced so that it can be obtained without financial strain by Africans and Nigerians, and that said energy use does not harm the local environment and exhaust resources thus affecting the future generations. Engineer Tombomieye made it clear that this can be achieved through a ‘multi-stakeholder approach’ which would require the efforts of the government, private sector, civil society, host community and the public at large working on the basis of the ‘delicate balance’ of political whim, technological innovation, effective market legalisms, well crafted policy interventions and capacity building.
He said ‘we hope to see an increase in the footprint of alternative cleaner energy sources in the foreseeable future amidst fossil fuel dominance.’
He stated that for Nigeria to get to this point, we must use what we have – and in this case NNPC Limited identified gas as the transition fuel, which required an expansion of the development of gas infrastructure in Nigeria to ‘increase energy accessibility’. The use of this resource, according to Engineer Tombomieye, gives us a ‘better energy vision’ due to the technological limitations of other energy sources such as solar and wind, as well as the in-affordability of these sources which ‘cannot meet the high energy demand of our cities, and remote environments’.
To steer Nigeria forward in this direction, NNPC Limited plans to sustain and increase the gas development and gas transmission projects in the state to achieve affordable and clean energy, as stated in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the United Nations. He encouraged all industry stakeholders and professional bodies to contribute to ensuring the provision of affordable, clean and efficient energy options to stakeholders comprising over 200 million Nigerians’. To end the discussions of the day, Engineer Tombomieye emphasized that our collective success would be defined by how affordable and wide range of energy sources are delivered sustainably.
Having just spoken to a room full of petroleum engineers and other industry experts on a topic centered on the modifications our national energy landscape must make to reflect global changes, Engineer Tombomieye could not have put it Speaking to a room full of petroleum engineers on a topic centered on the changes our national energy landscape must make to reflect global changes, Engineer Tombomieye could not have put it better when he said “there is no better time than now for this discussion to take place”.