President Buhari urges PENGASSAN to Support the Nation’s Oil and Gas Industry

President Muhammadu Buhari has tasked the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) to put in their supportive efforts towards the drive to get a much needed skilled manpower to meet the nation’s developmental challenges facing the oil and gas industry.

Buhari made this known during the 6th Triennial PENGASSAN National Delegates’ Conference, which was flagged off yesterday in Abuja.

President Buhari who was represented by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, said the Nation was counting on the association to continue to provide the much-needed support to meet our developmental mandate.

“Nigerian oil and gas industry remains the main driver for economic and infrastructural development of the country. “It is the major contributor of foreign exchange earnings to Nigeria’s government, accounting for around 10 per cent for the nations GDP as well as providing employment to a significant number of skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled labour. All these would not have been possible without the diligent contributions of PENGASSAN.”

“Our collaboration will focus on gas to transmute Nigeria from the conventional dependence on white products for prime movers to a cleaner, more available, accessible, acceptable, and affordable energy used in gas.

“This will cushion the effect of deregulation and create enormous job opportunities for Nigerians,” Buhari said.

“The government is factoring in these current realities in its reform agenda. We are developing strategic survival measures to ensure economic sustainability and job security.

“We seriously believe that the diversification plan to the non-oil economy has become a national imperative. Let me assure you that crude oil will remain prominent in the global energy mix in the medium to long term. This implies that massive opportunities abound to members of PENGASSAN,” he said.