Minister of State for Petroleum Resources responsible for Gas Ekperikpe Ekpo has appealed to investors to unlock Nigeria’s vast natural gas endowment for industrial and economic development, arguing that the country’s prosperity would ultimately be measured not by the volume of gas beneath its soil but by the extent to which that resource powered industries, supported households, created employment, and drove sustainable economic growth.
Represented by the Director of Midstream and Downstream at the ministry Mrs. Ikenma Irene at the Association of Local Distributors of Gas Business Forum in Abuja, the minister said Nigeria’s documented reserves of over 209 trillion cubic feet of natural gas made it one of the most richly endowed nations in the world, but that the true national challenge lay in translating geological abundance into widespread economic access and utilization.
He said the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 had strengthened the legal and regulatory framework needed to attract investment, encourage private sector participation, expand infrastructure, and promote market efficiency throughout the gas sector, and that the Tinubu administration’s Decade of Gas initiative and broader energy reforms were designed to position Nigeria as a genuinely gas-powered economy rather than one that exported raw hydrocarbons while importing refined products and industrial energy.
He drew a lesson from the development trajectories of industrialized nations, saying their economic advancement had been enabled not merely by resource endowment but by the construction of systems that delivered reliable energy access and efficient markets, and that Nigeria needed to move decisively and immediately in the same direction by combining policy consistency, strong institutions, strategic investment, and security collaboration.
