The Spanish Government on Tuesday said it bought oil and gas worth 6.5 billion Euros from Nigeria in 2014. The Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Alfonso Sebastian de Erice, disclosed this while on a visit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, at the National Assembly.
The Spanish envoy, Erice expressed readiness of his country to help Nigeria boost local production of crude oil by partnering to transform existing refineries in the country. He also said that Spain was prepared to partner Nigeria in agricultural development while appreciating the already existing bilateral relations between the two countries.
Erice said: “Spain is one of the partners of Nigeria, the first or the second best client; we buy 6.5 billion Euros worth of oil and gas. We are very happy with the exchanges that we have, and we need the oil but we want to diversify because we think it is very important that our economic relations should not be only in gas and petrol.”
“We want to cooperate with you in agriculture; we have very good agricultural industry. We have comparative advantage in tourism, manufacturing. We have several treaties that allow us to work here. It is a domain that we will have to explore.”“For us, the oil business is important because we need it but we want diversity and I know that Nigerian authorities also want to diversify,” he said.
Speaking on terror in the country, the Spanish envoy said that his country was ready to provide support towards combating the menace, adding that Spain and Nigeria had signed several Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on training on anti-terrorism.
In a relative response, the speaker, Yakubu Dogara said Nigeria appreciated Spain’s offer to help in fighting terrorist. He also noted that Nigeria had a lot in common with Spain and called for further assistance to enable Nigeria to diversify its economy.
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