Buhari to attend gas summit in Equatorial Guinea

President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to leave Abuja on Friday for Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to participate in the 5th Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Summit.

The Presidency disclosed this on Thursday in a statement on the Nigerian President official Twitter handle – @NGRPresident.

According to the statement, the one-day summit would be attended by leaders of Algeria, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Bolivia, Iran, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Kazakhstan and Norway.

It said the countries accounted for 70 percent to 80 percent of global gas reserves and production respectively.

It read: “The idea of the GECF was first mooted in 2001 with the First Ministerial Meeting held in Tehran, Iran, while the First GECF otherwise called Gas Summit, took place in Doha, Qatar in 2011 with Nigeria represented at the highest level.

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“Indeed, President Buhari attended the Third Gas Summit in Tehran in November 2015.

“This Fifth Gas Summit in Malabo is the first time the biennial meeting will be hosted in Africa.

“Nigeria, being home to the largest proven natural gas reserves in Africa – over 202 trillion cubic feet (TCF) – and the ninth-largest in the world, the Malabo Summit provides a veritable platform for President Buhari to reaffirm Nigeria’s commitment to the broad objectives of the GECF which among others, ‘seek to support the sovereign rights of member countries over their natural gas resources and their ability to independently plan and manage the sustainable, efficient and environmentally-conscious development, use and conservation of natural gas resources for the benefit of their people.”

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