Nigeria and Russia are working to accelerate the implementation of joint nuclear energy projects, according to Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar.
Mr Tuggar said this in an interview with Sputnik in the course of a three-day working visit to Moscow from March 5–7.
The minister said that Nigeria and Russia are currently implementing practical steps and training people as part of efforts toward implementing the project.
He added that the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission and partners in Russia’s Rosatom are trying to speed up the process.
“Nigeria is considering all aspects of cooperation in this area, not limited to electricity production, but including medical, agricultural and industrial applications of nuclear technology,” Mr Tuggar maintained.
Another area of interest for Nigeria is cooperation in the oil and gas industry with Russia, where “the door is always open to Russian businesses, Russian companies that are in the field of hydrocarbons,” Mr Tuggar said.
According to him, the necessary steps have already been taken to make the country more attractive to investment.
“So, what we have done as a government is to have a complete overhaul of our oil and gas laws.
“We have a Petroleum Industry Act that has created an upstream regulator (for search, field exploration, production of hydrocarbons) separate from a midstream (for transportation of hydrocarbons) and downstream regulator (for processing of hydrocarbons and sales), which makes the business opportunities even more attractive,” Tuggar explained.
The passage of this bill will allow for the development of Nigeria’s gas fields, and gas could become a fuel that the country could switch to, as it is “sitting on 206 trillion cubic feet of gas” that it needs to utilise, he said.
Sputnik/NAN
