The National Association of Petroleum Explorationist (NAPE) held its 25th Annual International Conference and Exhibition at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja recently to bring together oil and gas industry experts from across the World to discuss issues of mutual benefit.

The event, which was sponsored by Shell Petroleum Development Company, had the theme: “Future of Oil and Gas: World Outlook”. It was attended by a significant number of local and international companies engaged or interested in petroleum exploration activities.

Speaking at the occasion, President of the association, Dr. Emmanuel Elo expressed regret that some deepwater exploration companies were relinquishing their oil blocks for not hitting any discoveries.

He called on all deepwater operators to come together and carry out a look-back analysis of how Explorationists have fared so far in the deepwater arena.

Dr. Elo said this would be with a view to understanding the complex geological terrain at play as they moved further outward into the ultra-deep water. The NAPE President maintained that the answer to understanding deepwater performance was not by awarding more deepwater blocks, as those blocks offered during the 2001 to 2007 oil bid and runic bid rounds fell in the category of oil blocks with complex geology.

Very few operators that emerged following the recent oil bid rounds, according to him, could boast of drilling their first well within two years of award. Nigeria’s aspiration at the moment is to increase production capacity to four million barrels per day and increase reserves to 40 billion barrels by 2010.

For this aspiration to be achieved, exploration activities in the nation’s oil and gas industry need to be enhanced to bring about more discoveries.

He said that it would be impossible for the nation to achieve the feat if exploration activities were not increased. To be able to do this, operators need to acquire and deploy the appropriate technology that would further promote exploration activities.

With the demand for energy on the rise both locally and globally, and with oil dominating the nation’s economy over the years, Nigeria should step up the search for natural gas, which is fast becoming very important in the global energy industry.

Adequate funding of this project should therefore be provided in order to meet the increasing demand for the products globally.

With about 190 trillion cubic feet of gas which is equivalent to 33 billion barrels of oil, Nigeria has the tenth largest reserve in the World and second only to Algeria on the African Continent. In energy terms the reserve of natural gas in Nigeria, is of the same order as the reserves of crude oil.

Also speaking at the conference, Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company, Engr. Basil Omiyi stated that the challenge in the future of oil and gas was how to keep supply secure and reduce the impact of energy on the environment.

He said that by 2050, energy consumption would more than double when world population is expected to grow by more than half with Nigeria playing an important role.