The European Union (EU) Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS Ms Samuela Isopi, said Nigeria is an important partner for the oil and gas bloc.
The Ambassador said this yesterday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
She added that the bloc is interested in strengthening cooperation, particularly in increasing the quantity of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), and in exporting the gas produced in Nigeria to Europe.
Isopi said the recent visit of the Deputy Director-General Department for Energy, European Commission in Brussels, Matthew Baldwin, was to put things into perspective on the cooperation.
“The visit of our Deputy Director-General for energy was, first of all, to give a message that Nigeria is already an important partner for Europe on oil and gas.
So we’ve started the discussions, we know that there are challenges, like the situation in the Niger Delta, which has also an impact on the gas sector.
“Then, of course, we are interested in strengthening that cooperation, and in particular, in increasing the quantity of LNG gas that is produced in Nigeria and exported to Europe.
“So we’ve started the discussions, we know that there are challenges, like the situation in the Niger Delta, which has also an impact on the gas sector.
“Our first hope and common objective with Nigeria is for Nigeria to come back to the full capacity of its LNG production.
“We know that there are investments that are in the pipeline for Nigeria to be able to increase that capacity, and the message we gave was very clear.
“Europe is ready to work with Nigeria on this issue, so the conversation will continue. There is a big opportunity for Nigeria following the situation between Russia and Ukraine,” she said.
According to her, the member states are also reaching out to other countries, and would therefore be a pity for Nigeria not to take advantage of this opportunity and “we really hope we will be able to do something concrete.”
NAN reports that the EU’s executive body had urged member states to slash their gas consumption by 15% as it warned that a complete shutdown of Russian supplies was likely.
The EU has been scrambling to wean itself off Russian gas since the invasion of Ukraine, but is alarmed about a potential energy crisis this winter.
