Oil Refineries: Nigeria Ignores The Green Energy Transition At Its Peril

 By Olu Fasan

Last  week, I wrote about the dire economic consequences for Nigeria as a petrostate almost solely reliant on oil and gas exports. This week, I want to address another aspect of that intervention: the climate impacts of Nigeria’s deepening commitment to burning fossil fuels.

Nothing demonstrates this commitment more than the excitement over the Dangote Refinery and the government’s determination to license more private oil refineries while pursuing new hydrocarbon exploration. The economic and climate impacts of Nigeria’s fossil-fuel dependency pose existential threats to the country’s future stability. Yet, Nigeria is entrenching itself as a hydrocarbon country while paying lip service to energy transition.

How Much Crude Oil Is Being Stolen In Nigeria?

 By Nnimmo Bassey 

To say that Nigeria is being stolen is an understatement. It is a sordid situation. Shocking stories from the oil and gas sector continue to hit the news media. Rather than being numbed by the monstrous pillaging of the nation, Nigerians should respond to the wake-up call, especially in an election season. 

By some deft choreography, the blame for the stealing and pollution in the oil field communities of the Niger Delta has been deflected to the poor communities. 

This devious deflection has been so successful that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which has the fingerprints of multinational oil companies all over it, criminalizes communities and holds them up as being responsible for interferences that may occur on oil facilities in their territories.