A former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Odein Ajumogobia, last week raised the alarm over the increasing rate of oil and gas consumption in the country, saying that pragmatic action on the part of government is required to reverse the lack of development in the upstream sector.

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest release put total fuel consumption in the second quarter of 2018 at 53 million litres per day, which the former minister said government needed to urgently reverse as Nigeria might go the way of Indonesia, which was a net exporter turned into net importer of crude oil.

Speaking in Lagos during a panel session at the annual conference of the International Society of Petroleum Engineers, Ajumogobia said: “Our long honeymoon is over. If we continue the way we are going, Nigeria might become a net importer of crude oil. With its population growing at 3.6 percent per year, if nothing is done about reserves replacement and production, we will soon go the way of Indonesia.”

Source: Daily Trust