Nigeria’s oil & gas sector attracts $32.3m capital inflow in Q4, 2021

Oredola Adeola

Despite Nigeria’s dependence on crude oil earnings, foreign investment inflow into the country’s oil and gas sector in the fourth quarter of 2021 hit a low base of $32.31million out of the total value of $2,187.63 million capital importation into Nigeria, in the period under review.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed this in the latest Nigerian Gross Domestic Product Report released on Sunday.

According to NBS the total capital inflow for Q4, 2021, increased by 26.35% to $2,187.63 million from $1,731.37 million in the preceding quarter.

This figure obtained from NBS revealed that foreign capital inflow into the oil and gas sector accounts for as little as 1.5 percent of the total capital inflow into the Nigerian economy compared to other sectors like tanning which had the highest inflow of $645.59 million , representing about 29.51% of total capital imported, this was followed by capital imported into the production sector, valued at $360.06 million (16.46%) in Q4 2021.

The real growth of the oil sector in Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was – 8.06% (year-on-year) in the fourth Quarter of 2021 indicating an increase by 11.71 percent points relative to the rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2020.

NBS said the growth increased by 2.68 percent points when compared to Q3 2021 which was 10.73 percent.  Meanwhile, the electricity sector pulled $325.55 million, amounting to 14.88% of total capital imported in the period under review.

Contribution of the non-oil sector to GDP in Q4, 2021, the  NBS noted that the non-oil sector grew by 4.73% in real terms during the reference quarter (Q4 2021). This rate according to the agency was higher by  3.05% point compared to the rate recorded in the same quarter of 2020 and 0.71% point lower than the third quarter.

On the contribution to total GDP, Agriculture contributed the most to GDP with 26.84 %,  followed by trade with 15.66 %  and  information and communication with 15.21%. On the percentage contribution of sectors to the GDP Q4,2020.

The Bureau said activity that contributed the least was administrative & support services with 0.02%, this is followed by water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation with 0.16% and Arts, Entertainment and Recreation with 0.20%.

NBS said, electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply contributed 0.47 percent to the GDP.

Disaggregating into the broad  sector, the Q4 report showed that services recorded the highest year-on-year growth rate of  5.58% in the fourth quarter of 2021  followed by agriculture with 3.58% while industry had -0.05 percent.

The agency said Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 3.98%(year-on-year) in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2021, showing a sustained growth for the fifth quarter since the recession witnessed in 2020 when output contracted by -6.10% and -3.62% in Q2 and Q3 of 2020 under the Covid pandemic.

The Q4 2021 growth rate  according to NBS was higher than the 0.11% growth rate recorded in Q4 2020 by 3.87% points and lower than 4.03% recorded in Q3 2021 by 0.05% points.

Nevertheless, quarter on quarter, real GDP grew at 9.63% in Q4 2021 compared to Q3 2021, reflecting a higher economic activity than the preceding quarter.

Sectoral share of imports shows that 50.51% were manufactured goods, followed by other petroleum oil products with 28.60%.  Agricultural goods contributed 11.23%  of total imports, while raw material goods  contributed 9.16%. Solid minerals contributed the least with 0.50%.

Exports by sector (goods) for Q4 showed that crude oil accounted for 74.04 percent of total exports. Manufactured goods, raw material goods and agricultural goods contributed 6.86%, 4.31% and 2.30% respectively to total exports.

Energy goods contributed 0.36%, while solid mineral goods contributed the least with 0.24% to total exports.

Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, told a delegation of the European Union (EU), who paid a visit to his office in Abuja recently that in the last 10 years, over $70 billion worth of investments came to Africa. According to him, less than $4 billion came to Nigeria, which is surprisingly the biggest country in Africa.

While decrying the rapid drop in foreign investment flow to Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. Sylva revealed that the speed at which Europe has been pushing back against investment in fossil fuel is bad for Africa. He noted that the Russia and Ukraine war has taught the world a big lesson, especially in the energy sector.

He said, “One of the biggest problems we have in the sector has been investments. If we cannot attract investments to Nigeria, you know where we are heading.

Engr Segun Adebayo, a key player in the energy sector is hopeful that the country will witness a dramatic influx of investment capital in the months ahead . Adebayo said that , “the demand for natural gas consumption in Europe will play a pivotal role in re-establishing Nigeria as an investment destination’