The Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch
Shell Plc, Mr. Peter Voser, has said that security situation worsened
in Nigeria in 2012.
Voser, in a speech posted on the
company’s website on Sunday, said, “ the overall security situation in
2012 has worsened. The stealing and sabotage of crude oil intensified.
It’s a multi-billion-dollar business.
“ Shell alone cannot solve these issues.
It needs to be a multi-stakeholder approach, as we have been saying for
many, many years. SPDC is prepared to do their share, but it needs more
than just Shell’s support in Nigeria. It needs concerted government
action to reduce theft of crude.”
He added there was some uncertainty in
Nigeria ’s petroleum industry because of ongoing discussion about a new
petroleum industry bill.
“That may change our views on investing
in Nigeria, depending on how this is implemented. The current draft –
which is still the subject of discussions and consultations – would make
it highly unlikely that Shell – and the whole industry – could invest
in offshore and domestic gas projects.
“This would be counterproductive to what Nigeria needs, which is gas for power generation and revenues to develop the nation.”
He, however, said that Nigeria had, from an oil and gas perspective, a lot of opportunities which SPDC was part of.
Voser added, “overall I am positive
about the future of Shell’s continued investments in Nigeria.” Voser
said the company had significant public discussions around the country,
in the Netherlands and to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom.
He said,”I think the Shell Petroleum
Development Company of Nigeria Ltd has made great progress over the last
two years in terms of actually dealing with operational issues, and in
cleaning up previous years’ sabotage and operational spill sites.”
On the global economic outlook for 2013, the Shell boss saw Asia recovering faster than the rest of the world.
Voser stated, “I see good potential in
the United States for 2013. I’m more pessimistic on Europe. Europe will
have a very slow growth year in 2013 and hopefully will recover at a
later stage. So overall we are looking at one or two quarters with
slower growth from a global perspective and hopefully then recovering in
the second half of 2013.”
“For Shell, if you take a purely
strategic view, short-term economic cycles do not have an impact in the
sense that we do not change our investment policies. We will not change
our strategic goals. We are a long-term industry and therefore we are
investing throughout the business cycle.
“From an operational point of view, a
downturn in the economy always gives us even more incentive to drive
continuous improvement. So taking costs out wherever you can, or
bringing in more value from the assets and the processes that we have
today. Continuous improvement needs to be driven even harder.”
PUNCH
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