In Freight News 07/04/2015
Sub-Sahara Africa’s oil trade with the US has dropped by 85 percent in 2015, relative to performance in 2008, Victor Eromosele, a Nigerian Petroleum expert has disclosed. According to him, as of March 2015 annual petroleum export to the US from Sub-Sahara Africa has reduced to 15 billion US dollars relative to the 100 billion dollars annual transactions in 2008.
Eromosele disclosed this in his presentation at the three-day Sub-Sahara Africa Oil and Gas Summit which ended here.
“As US oil production booms, Africa, and not the Middle East has suffered more than all other oil producers,” the expert stressed.
He attributed this slump in the volume of oil trade between Africa and US to activities of Shale Producers and agreed with “The Economist” magazine in its assertion: “The contest between the shalemen and the sheikhs has tipped the world from a shortage of oil to a surplus.”
Nigeria and other sub-sahara African countries, must get ready to compete and develop projects in the new world of shale production, especially the one coming from the US, Eromosele urged.
For Shale gas alone, he indicated that the US has granted licenses to six of 26 projects on the queue in Chiniere’s Sabine Pass, Freeport, Corpus Christi, Cove Point and Cameron to export Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) helping the country to save 100 billion dollars a year from not importing LNG.
In Tight (shale) oil, he said the US domestic production already exceeds that of Saudi Arabia while incentives are being offered to help grow the renewable energy in the US.
Meanwhile oil prices had slid on the global market from 106 dollars per barrel in August 2014 to a low of 48 dollars last January, before inching up slowly to 57 dollars per barrel in February and 60.43 dollars in March 2014.
Most developing countries whose budgets depend partly or heavily on oil exports have had serious jolts in their annual estimates with Ghana reviewing downwards its estimates for the 2015 fiscal year as a result of the moribund crude prices on the global stage.
To save the situation, Eromosele urged sub-sahara African countries to pool resources to build huge refineries to serve the sub-region.
The three-day Summit and Exhibition was on the theme: “Unlocking the Upstream Potentials of Sub-Sahara Africa.
Adeyemi Adeyemo, a certified petroleum engineer said the sub- saharan potentials lay in deep waters, adding that Subsea technologies hold the key for future field developments in deeper waters, complex reservoirs and longer step-outs. Enditem
