An empirical investigation of the impact of global energy transition on Nigerian oil and gas exports

18 months embargo on the thesis and check appendix for copy right materials

Net energy exporting countries (NEECs) and net energy importing countries (NEICs) depend on each other for mutual gains. However, NEICs pursue strategic policies to reduce consumption of energy from conventional sources and increase that of renewable energy in order to attain energy security and macro environmental and carbon accountability. On the other hand, NEECs such as Nigeria depend heavily on oil and gas exports to NEICs to generate revenue. As a result of this inter-dependent relationship, this PhD project adopts a dependency theory and strategic issue analysis framework to underpin the study. Accordingly, the study approach is founded on the ideas of pluralism as a social reality and adopted pragmatism as the research approach. Consistent with these approaches, the study was undertaken by analysing both secondary and primary data, including macro-economic statistics of annual time-series dataset (1980-2014) and semi-structured interviews respectively. The quantitative part of the project used Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds testing approach. This method was used to investigate and analyse the effect of renewable energy consumption and carbon emissions reduction on Nigeria’s oil and gas exports. The qualitative part involved interviews with twenty senior government officials in Nigeria from six selected Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), representatives of civil society groups and academicians, to support the quantitative results and answer certain research questions. The short-run quantitative results and qualitative findings show that renewable energy consumption in developed NEICs affects Nigeria’s oil and gas exports. However, the reverse holds true for emerging NEICs. Both the quantitative results and the qualitative findings show that carbon emissions reduction in developed NEICs affects Nigerian oil and gas exports in the long run. Also, the quantitative results show that renewable energy consumption in developed and emerging NEICs does not affect Nigerian oil and gas exports in the long run. However, the qualitative findings only support the quantitative results for emerging NEICs but do not support those of developed NEICs. Similarly, the qualitative findings indicate that other external and internal factors such as discovery of shale oil and gas; improvement in energy efficient technologies; the use of long-term contract in other NEECs; stringent nature of the Nigerian Content Law and lack of passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill amongst others currently contribute in affecting Nigeria’s oil and gas exports. Moreover, the qualitative findings show that global energy transition has an impact on the Nigeria’s oil and gas revenue, savings made to the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Fund, budget financing and will continue to affect Nigerian revenue and budget if the economy remains undiversified. Finally, the qualitative findings indicate that global energy transition has negatively affected Foreign Direct Investment flow into Nigerian petroleum industry and discoveries of new oil and gas reserves. These findings have several implications. Firstly, Nigerian oil and gas exports are affected by the carbon emissions control regime, which makes future oil and gas revenues uncertain; thereby putting pressure on budget financing and socio-economic growth and development. On this note, there is the need for Nigeria to take cautionary position in the global climate change debate in order not to adversely affect the country’s economic interest. Secondly, the consumption of energy from renewable sources in both developed and emerging NEICs is an opportunity for Nigeria to export not only its conventional energy but also renewable energy if commercially harnessed. This suggests that Nigerian should also invest heavily in renewable energy production. Thirdly, the major findings of this study provide evidence in support of the relevance of dependency theory and strategic issue analysis framework within the context of energy transition in NEICs on one hand, and Nigerian oil and gas exports to these countries on the other. This implies the need for Nigeria to focus on developing internal market trajectories to increase domestic utilisation of its conventional energy rather than being dependent on external markets for the sale of the nation’s energy resources.