Ben Adoga

Nigeria will lose a total sum of US$ 7 billion from the gas sector in three months' time, minister of state for energy (gas), Chief Emmanuel Olatunde Odusina, has said.

The minister made this revelation yesterday at the inauguration of the Senate committee on gas headed by Senator Osita Izunaso.

This, he said, was because of lack of appropriate legislation.

"Nigeria will be losing seven billion US dollars in three months; that is, between now and when the current gas bill will be passed," he said.

Odusina urged the senate to expedite action on the passage of the bill to curb economic loses on the nation.

He also assured Nigerians that in the next four years, the nation's economy will be driven by gas. He stated that in the past, attention was focused on oil to the detriment of gas, and that it was time to shift attention to gas as it was the main thing to sustain the economy now.

Also speaking, the acting group managing director of NNPC, Alhaji Abubakar Yar'Adua, said that low pricing of gas has discouraged investors from the sector and urged government to consider appropriate pricing for gas to attract investors to the sector. He said the NNPC was aiming at 35,00mw of gas in the near future.

Earlier, the deputy senate president, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who inaugurated the committee on behalf of the senate president, said that as the world looked to non-Middle-East oil and gas, Nigeria naturally was the first port of call.

"We in Senate are challenged in the area of appropriate legislation," he stated.

He urged the committee to prepare the framework and ground for the legislative work.

He said oil and gas were twin pillars of national development and that gas was very crucial to the economy now.

The Senate committee chairman on gas, Senator Osita Izunaso, in his welcome address said there was need for a gas conference towards concretising the nature, scope and structure of gas in Nigeria."

He also decried gas pricing, saying that the pricing structure discouraged investors.

The committee chairman pointed out that the passage of the gas bill before the Senate would be sooner than later and welcomed President Umaru Yar'Adua's unbundling of the NNPC.