Energy and Maritime Consultant and Managing Partner, The Chancery Associates, Mr. Emeka Okwuosa, has said the recent evolution of shale oil in the United States has led to steady decline in Nigeria’s crude oil exports to the US.
He said oil is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy and accounted for over 90 per cent of the total export earnings of the country, and the US still remained the biggest importer of Nigeria’s crude oil.
In a report by his chamber on Friday on the sector, Okwuosa was quoted as saying that the evolution of shale had caused Nigerian oil export to the US to diminishs from about one million barrels per day in December 2009 to less than 352,000 barrels per day as at February 2013.
“This amounts to about 70 per cent loss of the US market from a region that was the largest importer of Nigeria’s crude oil,” he explained.
He said shale oil development will lead to a net fall in Nigeria’s crude oil exports to the US with the attendant reduction in government revenue which will have a negative multiplier-effect on the economy.
This, he said, comes against the backdrop of divestments by multinational oil companies in Nigeria and the increased calls for Nigeria to be more competitive in the global energy mix.
The Minister for Petroleum Resources Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, in her presentation at the recently concluded Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference 2013, had said, “I must say that the world is now becoming more competitive, the U.S shale oil is already affecting our oil export to the US bearing in mind that the US is one of our major trade partners in this sector”.
